Bulldozer work started in 1995
Currawong.... Sometime in 1995 I had been up to Rabaul for a Port Inspection and flew back to Port Morbid in the Jump Seat of an F28 and asked the Captain (who I knew) if he would "go left a little bit" so I could get a squint at the whole of the search area and take some photos. He knew about the project and obliged....
I was amazed to see tracks creeping towards the search area from the North-west. I knew that the Australian Army Survey Corps had surveyed for a road across the narrow neck between Wide Bay and Open bay during WWII and there had been a rudimentary track. What I was now seeing was the road being made through to the Southern Coast at Wide Bay.
When we got in on the ground in early 1996 we met up with some part of this road through the Mumus River Valley and then up onto the search area hill, the track through was the point where we reached in late 1996 on our second visit that year and which was the time when I saw the bare earth patch that I now suspect as the burial site.
Then in 1996, logging had not commenced in this area stripping everything of value and you could actually see through the Primary Jungle on top of the ridgeline. The loggers were working their way towards the coast.
Last year we entered what was a complete mess. The bulldozer track that I knew on the ridgeline had become a water course exposing tree roots and causing deep puddles to form in the hollows. Secondary Jungle is the pits. Now you cannot see more than twenty feet while on the old track and visibility drops down to ten feet inside the bush off the track. New growth is everywhere. The "new" trees, post 1996 are not distinguishable from some of the older sprigs which have shot up since the light was let in...
So, it has made it harder and nastier.