Long lost moto bike

70 years ago my grandfather crashed and Indian scout motorcycle off the road and an area of North island called Turkina

I have had a very good discussion with him and scoured over numerous old aerial photos of the area and have pinpointed some very likely locations where it may be. I live in the South Island and don’t travel very well due to a spinal injury would anyone be interested in running a very powerful metal detector over the areas of interest orders anyone know where I can hire an extremely powerful metal detector to freighted to Palmerston North and I have been talking to a geotechnical engineer who has helped me in my quest kind regards to all sincerely Samuel Bennett

The areas you have indicated generally don’t look (via Google Earth and topo maps) conducive to holding a motorcycle subsurface. The stream shown doesn’t look to have a capacity for regular large volumes of silt, and the path indicates a typically low flow. Without further info, if I had to stick a pin in the map, I’d go for the thin dark blue line top and lower left.
Assuming he overshot the bend, I would look further up the road. Generally vehicles don’t go straight out, they can also overcorrect and leave the road on the inside of the corner - all conjecture, based on the most likely scenario for a bike to go bush, but gives you an idea of search areas.
Any mid to high end detector with an experienced operator running full open on a 15" coil would pick up a motorcycle down to a minimum of 1m. A gold-specific machine would be ideal, as they run ‘hot’, however expect to dig a lot of holes… No need for two-box devices unless you’re talking multiple metres down.
Feel free to drop me a message if you want some Search & Rescue angles…

Good hunting.

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Do you mean ‘Turakina’?

yes he was riding north from palmy to Whangaegu

hi i neglected to say that the bike ended up sinking into a swamp if you look at the bottom of black and white pic you can see the original road layout with a near 90 degree

bend and a meandering stream whith would possibly indicate swamp land thanks for your response

@longlostbike 1959 Topo… Will see what I have in the map drawer, but it’s not ‘my’ area. The drain intersecting the junction would be best guess for a ‘swamp’ description.
image

now that’s an old map . got the old typeset . reminds me of my days in the drawing office making those maps, working of the aerial black and white photos. we thought we were so cool. not like today with all satilight stuff. no such thing as a draughtsman its computer techs

Yeah, I miss the old inch to the mile. So much more detail than today.

Turakina settlement 1870’s - I think the area of interest is to the right of the photo, but doesn’t suggest ‘swampy’ land, which lends weight to the ‘dropped the bike in the drain’ theory…
image
Although high res 1940’s aerial doesn’t suggest anything marshy here…

I’ll pour another beer and see what swampiness I can find…

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I reckon with that being a small community someone would have known the bike was there and so it is likely long gone.

yip that did cross my mind …apparently they were super common, you could buy them for next to nothing

that bridge is at the north end…he had not reached the town yet…there was only 1 pub in town and that was a the other end …there is one still there called the Ben Nevis… he said he only walked a short distance into

yep I have every one of the south island and not to far of the north island. never look at them these days.

Yep the Army Scout was cheap as chips and they did used to get dumped where they landed.

looks to still be in pretty good shape…thanks for the link samuel

Hey mate, haven’t been on here in a while, I know this area quite well.
So your satellite photo you have with the markings is on Wanganui Road coming from Marton to Turakina, are you sure that’s the spot?
I wasn’t aware that to come from Palmy you came from Marton direction as the most direct route is from Bulls up SH3.
I don’t know the history of the current SH3 so perhaps this accident predates the highway.
There are two pubs in Turakina, one directly on that bend, if you use “Street View” on the maps you’ll see there is a pub right on that cross road.
The other is approx 1km further up SH3 towards Wanganui (Whanganui) just before the bridge that crosses the river.
To the left hand side of the highway (if heading towards W(h)anganui) at that point is lowland that is wet whereas the righthand side is highground and obviously not wet.
This is between what is now the Antiques Shop on the corner of Turakina Valley Road and the bend that takes you to the bridge.
If I was a betting man I’d say its in that area rather than where you’ve marked.
Where you’ve marked is just a paddock with a very small creek that once in ten years floods enough to push heavy silt.

So beside where Mobil is marked there is an old pub also, pretty sure it’s closed.
But if memory served the pub further up the road that I’ve marked was the Ben Nevis as its at the foot of a hill that rises from the river all the way up to Ratana that the locals used to call Ben Nevis due to its steepness I believe.

Could be wrong but I lived in the area for most of my childhood and memory isn’t outstanding but what I do know is the area you’ve indicated isn’t swamp land as it has that creek running through which actually drains the water from the area.

thanks for your info…can you draw on google maps like i did the area you think the bike might be as you have all the info avalibal and a bit of local knolage…swampy …near a pub and near a corner thanks Samuel

thanks for your info…can you draw on google maps like i did ‘‘not just an arrow’’ a few area you think the bike might be as you have all the info avalibal and a bit of local knolage…swampy …near a pub and near a corner thanks Samuel

The area where the arrow is an educated guess, there’s been houses in that area since the 70’s it’s still fairly wet land though.
I live about an hour from this region now. Haven’t been back for a long while but travelled it daily for years.
Use a topo map rather than a satellite map in the area and maybe touch base with any historical society in the Rangitikei or Wanganui regions as they may have something in their archives.