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Wairarapa Times-Age, 1 July 1938, Page 6

Travelling north along the Great South road in. his car, Mr Reuben Bradbury, of Papakura, near Auckland, felt a severe bump at a point where the road crosses a short arm of a swamp just north of a wattle plantation about four and a half miles south of Mercer, states a Mercer correspondent. The jolt led Mr Bradbury to think his back axle must have broken. He stopped and went back to investigate. He was amazed to find the smooth bitumen surface of the highway broken by an irregular hole about 18in. in diameter and at least a foot deep. The hole was right in the middle of the road. Mr Bradbury found a stick and stuck this in the hole with a bundle of paper affixed to the top as a warning to the drivers of other v’elaicles. He then continued on to Mercer, where he reported the matter at the police station, and repairs were commenced at once. It was found that only a, shell of bitumen remained over an irregular cavity about 6ft. in diameter atnfll un to about 2ft. in depth.