At the start of World War II, RMS Niagara was in service with the Canadian-Australasian Line from Auckland, New Zealand, to Suva and Vancouver. On 19 June 1940 she had just left Auckland when, off Bream Head, Whangarei, she struck a mine laid by the German auxiliary cruiser Orion and sank in 125 meters of water. No lives were lost but a large consignment of gold from the Bank of England went down with the ship (from Wilkipedia).

James Taylor’s book “Gold from the Sea” 1942 book tells of the daring salvage of much of the gold during the war. Today the wreck still holds 5 bars of gold in or around the strong room of the ship, valued at around NZ $1.4 million.

In 1999 2 divers, Dave Apperley and Tim Cashman were the first free swimming divers to visit the wreck. Since then, only 4 more groups have visited the wreck with the last being in March 2003, the trip on which Craig Challen and Craig Howell were also involved. The modern day exploration of the wreck is outlined in Keith Gordon’s excellent book “Deep Water Gold” ISBN 0 473 10056 8

For this trip, Tim Cashman will return from his homeland of Wales to again dive the “Titanic of the Pacific”. Niagara veterans Dave Apperley, Craig Howell and Craig Challen will also dive, joined by Richard Harris, John Dalla-Zuanna, Dean Chamberlain, Andrew Macintosh and Leigh Bishop. Diving from Tutakaka north of Auckland, the team will spend 10 days diving the wreck from the charter vessel Pacific Hideaway. The main goal is obtain high quality still and video images of the site, and of course keeping an eye out for that gold!

A nice summary of some the modern exploration by Keith Gordon can be read here
http://www.divenewzealand.com/articles.asp?sid=389

“Since 1999 when Tim and Dave first dived the Niagara, nine divers have carried out 23 dives on the wreck. No doubt more will follow”.