GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN
In the summer of 1974, five friends from Christchurch set off into the Southern Alps for the tramping trip of a lifetime.
Beginning near the Gates of Haast Bridge, the plan was to tramp for 17 days in the largely untracked landscape, tramping up the Burke River, over Siberia Saddle and Rabbit Pass, ending at the Matukituki River.
On the second night during an evening stroll around the grassy flats near the confluence of Burke River and Hope Creek, where they’d camped, the group stumbled upon an unusual object in the long grass. Pushing aside the grass, they saw that it was a concrete memorial with an inscription to a man named Brian Grady who had died here 25 years earlier. Accidentally killed near this spot, it read. It also gave his birth: 21 April 1931. He had just turned 18.
One member of the party, Sally Duston, sketched the memorial in her diary and the friends speculated about what had befallen the young Grady.
“We thought he might have been shot in a hunting accident,” says Duston, remembering the day. “It was a lovely memorial. Nicely done and not out of place. We said a few words and then went on our way and forgot about it for years.”
Memories came back though a few years ago when Duston came across her old sketch of the mysterious
