Frosty

Frosty was one of my forest workers, and he came as a government transfer from New Zealand Railways. This was entirely reasonable because the Otepopo Railway Station had closed down - actually before my time. There was a good set of stock yards, because livestock cartage had been a big part of the Railways' business.

I once used the yards to load some of my own cattle - this meant a long drive and a river ford, but it was a good way to load my cattle - onto a Hampden Transport truck.

There was a large goods-shed and a shunting bay. So it was a thriving station - and trains stopped for passenger service.

Frosty told us of many an exploit carried out at the station, with the recurring one being whenever there was a new engine driver, they would lure him into the station and Frosty 'stole' the train - often going right through the Herbert tunnel, which was nearby! Reversing back was a bit tricky because it meant backing up a steep incline! These were steam engine days and there was great billowing of smoke and steam!

If the same thing happened today, I'm sure the law would look dimly.

But Frosty was one of those old characters who drank hard and played hard but was honest as the day was long! A prankster too and was always laughing!

As with all the forest workers, Frosty was used to working with hand tools (slasher, shovel, spade, grubber) and was very skillful.

This reminds just how hard these guys used to work. P J Wilkie had a carrying business - a tipping truck. He won the contract to spread gravel on the Herbert Hill. To do this he drove his truck onto the Waianankarua river bed (Magaret Mackay's pit) and loaded on his own using a shovel! That's had work.

Later Snow, as we called him, worked a Clark's Mill at Maheno and then when it closed down, he put pressure on us, through local MP Alan Dick, for us to employ him.

The old bugger nearly killed me! We were logging windthrown Radiata Pine and he felled a standing tree but did not see me below me. I happened to switch off my chainsaw and heard the crack of his tree leaving the stump, starting to fall. I saw it coming straight for me and I discarded my saw and ran down a tree that had already been limbed - it was in line with the tree that was falling. At the top of the tree I jumped as far as I could and luckily there was a criss/cross of windthrown trees there for me to fall into! Snow's tree hit me on my helmet protected head - splitting it, but the criss/cross of trees took the force of the tree and I was unharmed.

Snow passes my home most weekends, he is in his 80's and often recounts the story and how badly he had felt when he say the tree heading in my direction. Then his relief when he saw me stand up!

Wally

Towards the end of the third training year - at the Forestry Training Center, Wakarewarewa, Rotorua - I managed to gain permission to keep a dog. Fair enough, dogs were not allowed, generally, but because I was to leave shortly; permission was granted.

Ross Lockyer and Bob Crooke were also allowed, though they were going into 'forestry protection' so perhaps needed a dog.

The three of us tootled up to Pukekohe on Bob's Model A Coupe to a dog breeder that had advertised in a paper we had read. For the record I sat in the small seat at the back - the Dickie Seat.

I bought a Doberman x German Shorthair Pointer, liver coloured and called 'Grin' by the breeder because that was what he used to do. Ross bought a Blue Heeler and Bob a Labrador x Alsatian.

I called my dog Wally after Wally Mapplebeck, my form teacher at CBHS who somehow managed to enthuse me to take education seriously.

Straight away I began to teach Wally manners and to behave appropriately - when you have special permission, you respect it or risk that permission being taken away.

At Naesby Forest, I had to convince Jack Rolls that Wally would be of no bother in the village, and he acquiesced. Trouble with this sort of thing is that you fight hard for a right and then someone else wants to be given the same right! Theo Russell therefore wanted a dog too, and Jack could hardly refuse him. His dog was a bit older and not so refined.

I used to take Wally for walks/runs morning and evening, mainly among the water races and dredge tailings. Making every day a lesson for him. Without being smug, I know about dogs and while I am no Dog Whisperer, I do not fear dogs and have the ability to manage them.

While I have had pig hunting dogs, and some thought them as 'savage', they were not, but having said that, if they were not chained up, I did not let them out of my sight. I have no truck with those who have these so called dangerous breeds and regard them as 'puppies', then somehow, they tear a young child apart! To me a dog is a dog and while you may well love it, a dog cannot be given the same status as a person.

Having said that, I wonder what was said of me as a walked in the suburbs of Christchurch. Cut off jeans for shorts, hobnail boots (fitted with tricoonies - if that's how it is spelt), with my dog(s) at heel. They were well trained and though they were not on a leash - verbally they were.

So on to Herbert Forest and I did not want Wally to be bothered with pigs. I wanted to train him to point to deer. As exercise for Wally, and for my own interest as well, I would take him pig hunting - me with a .22 rifle and Wally kept at heel.

I do have a lot of pig hunting stories and if time permits I will relate a few. Wally had learnt to pant silently when I was listening for animals.

Oh the other thing he did that I have never seen other dogs do - he would back into a low gorse bush and stand on his front legs only, and have a crap!

For a start, I would shoot smallish pigs, usually through an eye and I would share the meat among the forest workers. There were deer in the forest and very occasionally Wally would point one and I would shoot it.

He seemed keen to chase pigs though and so I let him do just that. He could hold (by the ear) a pig up to about 90 pounds and anything larger he would bail. This meant that I had to use my rough old .303 for the bail ups. I was getting too many pigs to eat so I sold them to Hughie Muldrew, who exported them.

Hughie used to employ a man in his butchery and I considered him unfair in his weighing and payment. And he was. My response was to fill the pig's mouths with stones to increase the weight - once I managed to place the butcher's saw in the rib cavity and gained that weight of that! It didn't give me very much more though.

I bought a big Alsatian x Collie fr9om the Dunedin Pound and Fred became a good companion to Wally. They could handle pigs, so well that I dispensed with my rifle. Using my Green River knife, I would slit the pig's throat! Hughie's buyers complained about this and and asked me to make a vertical cut and then cut the jugular vein without further cutting the meat. I did this many times, but on one occasion, I only cut the windpipe and the dogs had to re-catch it because they had headed off after more pigs, leaving me sitting on the rump of this one - when I stood up, he ran off!

The thing was though, I became to know almost every square meter of the forest because my dogs and the pigs took me there.

As well, I hunted possums for their skins and this too took me into every nook and cranny. Actually I bought my first colour TV from proceeds of possum skins.

Joe Bunting and Friend with Wally and Fred

On occasion I used to take friends out for a hunt and they were usually happy with the outcome.

As you can imagine though my old vehicle became a bit smelly with dogs and pig blood! Old Jim Robertson at the Waianakarua Garage and his offsider Jimmy Jamieson used to wash it out with disinfectant before they would work on it. I preferred the smell of the dogs to that of the disinfectant - but it didn't usually last long!

Fire in Compartment 5

Compartment 5 had been a good stand of Pinus nigra but thinking changed about the crop and it was decided that a full rotation was unprofitable. The area was clear-felled for the production of fence posts which was a lucrative market then.

In preparation for the next crop, the slash was heaped (windrowed) with great care to avoid soil being mixed in which would cause the fire to burn more slowly and remain burning for a long time. Charlie James had done the windrowing with his D4.

Weather conditions were good when the burn-off started and the heaps burnt cleanly. It was on the forest boundary and while it could be termed a 'slash burn', it was safe enough and the burn-off went well. As usual we monitored the area that night without problem.

A few days later we began planting and there was still the odd bit of slash that could be burnt and Doug Turner asked if he could light it. I agreed.

A 'tool' I often used was to rely on a burnt area to act as a firebreak - once burnt the fuel is consumed..............

That night, Jim Wilson rang me at about eleven o'clock that night to say there was a fire on the forest. There was a howling Southwest wind blowing! Now a Southwest wind is generally cold - often very cold but it brings low humidity. Fires burn best in low humidity!

I went outside and sure enough there was a great glow in the forest about the area of Compartment 5.

I called Bob Shaw and he picked me up to go and have a look at the fire. We found that it was the duff burning a second time, and the sparks carried by the strong wind kept igniting new areas!

The only danger point really was below a high rock bluff to the Northeast and below that there was a crop of 15 year old Cupressus macrocarpa. I went down there to take a look and saw that live sparks were landing in the trees, but luckily there was no wind down there, so they did not ignite anything.

In my rush I had not put on my boots, I wore my slippers, and the track was muddy down there - I lost both my slippers and never saw them again.

Bob went into the township to scramble the workers and I ducked home for my boots and readied the fire equipment - hooking the trailers to the trucks and warming the motors. I knew there was a great pond in Matheson's paddock - we had built it for firefighting purposes. I decided to set the Hale pump there because it could pump more volume than the Wajax. Use a by-pass and it would feed two fire hoses. Hales are a trick to prime, you close off the exhaust and fiddle around until a stream of water shoots out the pipe below it - then you turn on the feeder tap/valve. The inlet has to watched too because it could suck mud or float and suck air.

I decided I had better man the pump to make sure of a water supply. Two hose crews could pinch off each face of fire and another crew could relay water using the Wajax trailers filled from the creek below. I had no shelter where I worked and it was bitterly cold - the wind cut through my Swandri. I had a hand held radio so was able to talk to the teams and help direct them. Albert was in the office and I kept him recording what was going on. Actually we had omitted to inform District Office people or Conservancy - so no backup was on the way.

At about 3:00am I called Albert to ring Charlie James as his D4 was handy and there was enough light for him to operate to make firebreaks - bulldozers are good to have at fires!

I also asked him to organise Mags to ring around the wives to organise food for the 'troops'.

I was feeling frozen and called Colin over to operate the Hale - well watch it and make sure it didn't run out of fuel. I had tipped the last of the fuel into the tank and thought to warm up in the truck as I drove down to HQ to pick up more.

A bit dangerous that! I was so cold, and the truck so warm that twice, I nearly fell asleep as I drove down South Rodge Road! The warmth of the truck made my eyelids soooo heavy!

Good old Albert though - he had the fuel ready and a hot cup of coffee, which he demanded I drink. He had some sandwiches and made me eat one of those! Thus fortified, I went back to battle!

I had a small meeting with Bob, Herbie, Bert and Colin - old, experienced buggers and wise with it. Colin suggested that the wind might drop just before sunrise which would be a big help. We decided to be ready with water and hoses for when the wind dropped. It did and we hit the fire with all we had - we had had a long night!

Luckily, the wind did not build up again, and Charlie had made most of the boundaries safe with firebreaks - he's a good guy in a crisis too!

We had the fire out and it had not escaped into other areas. The pond was almost drained and I guess we all were at that. I sent everyone home except Colin. He and I sat there in the morning sun, drinking coffee and eating leftovers of the food the wives had prepared. We were watching just in case.

All was well again.