Sugarloaf, Summit in Port Hills, New Zealand.
Sugarloaf (Māori: Te Heru o Kahukura) is a hill in the Port Hills, 8 km south of central Christchurch, rising 493.78 m near Dyers Pass in the Sugarloaf Scenic Reserve. Its summit carries a 121 m lattice steel transmitter tower founded on a 5 m concrete pad over basalt, set about 50 m behind a two-storey transmission building designed by Arthur Spiers. The reserve land doubles as a sheep farm and has a public car park lookout.
The summit served as a natural landmark for the region until the New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation built a transmission tower here in 1965. This installation made it the primary broadcasting hub for television signals reaching the Canterbury region.
The Māori name Te Heru o Kahukura translates as "the headcomb of Kahukura". The summit lies within the Sugarloaf Scenic Reserve, whose land occasionally doubles as a sheep farm and includes a car park lookout open to the public.
The summit is reached via Summit Road near Dyers Pass, where the Sugarloaf Scenic Reserve has a public car park and lookout. The reserve doubles as a sheep farm, so expect livestock. The exposed hilltop is windy and can be snowbound; in August 1992 drifts up to 6 metres blocked the access road.
The steel lattice tower broadcasts both television and FM radio signals for the entire region, making it an invisible yet pervasive part of daily media consumption for everyone below. Few visitors realize that most broadcasts they hear are actually originating from this single structure perched on the peak.
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