Wheels

Throughout my working life I needed some form of transport to get around but, especially in those early days, Herbert Forest was the Cinderella of the Southland Conservancy - indeed Dunedin District. Actually I liked it that way because we didn't see big noises too much and were pretty well left to get on with things our way.

In those earlier days, all vehicles were the Forest Service yellow colour and wore the green triangle badge. Some of the pics are not my actual vehicles because I don't have pictures of them.

Early on at Herbert I had two forms of transport, my own little Commer Cob and Shank's Pony. I never claimed nor recieved compensation for using my own vehicle - I did not expect it really and using it was at times more convenient than walking. A lot of the time though I would walk and that too is a good thing because that's the way you find out about an area . Sometimes I would cut a track - using a straight edge slasher - to make a more permanent shortcut. I guess I was pretty fit then. As well I would have my .303 over my shoulder and if I saw pigs, I just might have a delay.

I could use old Russell's truck to a certain extent but it would be borrowed for this and that, but that old A2 Bedford was a good truck. The same body fits the three ton model so there was plenty of room for the smaller engine in the engine bay. Between the seats there was plenty of room to sit my rifle {or Russell's old .3006 and the passenger seat held two comfortably - usually old Bert or Mick. Comfort?
You could always tell when the oil was getting low, the oil light came on going up Middle Ridge Road! But it was no good at towing the Wajax trailer up hill because it lost traction' too light in the arse end' Mick would say. We had a bladder for emergency storing water and it held 200 gallons. With that filled with water on the back, there was enough traction to climb most hills with gravel roads.

When I was at Naseby Forest, there was an old Commer gang truck, but it was not used very much, so whenever anyone went to start it, there was always a problem because the carby would flood. Nobody liked to drive the old girl because she has a crash gearbox. Later vehicles had syncromesh which allowed gear changes to be smooth, all modern vehicles have something like that. I took a gang of guys to Wanaka to collect Douglas Fir seed in the old Commer and she performed well - as did the lads if the complaint's from fathers about the welfare of their daughters was any indication. Just another issue to sort out!
Anyway this Commer became my truck for a long time and one thing you could guarantee, nobody else would use it because it was so hard to drive - double de-clutch was the term. As well as the tricky gear bow, it was very heavy to steer - no power steering here. and often mud grip tyres were on the front wheels The Gearbox and diff growled so much I ended up putting thicker (SEA 140) oil in them. It was slow and the heater blew cold air whenever the vehicle was going down hill. Low gear most times uphill!
The old Commer had a canopy on the back (to house passengers) but that made it difficult to reverse - when we were making Moir's Gulley Road I had to back a trailer-mounted air-compressor [it had a Vanguard motor] way down there and around a sharp corner so we could drill the rock and set explosives. It took about two hours!
One time I lent it to a crew of students who were staying at Hampden - they phoned me to say that the gearbox was jammed! It had no oil in the gearbox, not a scarrack! I have no idea how that happened but with more oil there was no other problem.

Bob was the District Vehicle Inspector and I guess that there was more than me who was a constant thorn in his side. He liked to keep vehicles going, serviced well and in a tidy condition. He bordered on the pedantic and more than once he referred me to Keith Prior and later Jack Barber who were the respective District Rangers. My knuckles usually received their monthly rap a day or two after Bob's visit. After all, I was in charge of the forest vehicles and machinery and I did take the responsibility seriously, but clean vehicles when there was a lot of mud around - I don't think so. One time was when in a howling wind on top of Government Hill I stopped to open the gate, the door caught the wind and the door/hinge was twisted when I tried to close the door. We were fencing up there, so I took a crowbar and eased the door up so it would close. This put a small dent in the door frame and on the bottom of the door. Bob's report quoted how much extra the bill would be to fix the extra dent/s. Good old Jim though charged only for repairs to the hinge and took the rest out of my hide!

One day though, Bob took the old girl off the road! The frost plug at the back of the motor was so corroded that it 'was unsafe/unreliable to drive it. So she sat in the garage for a while until a decision could be made on what to with her. She would be auctioned off at a sale down at Conical Hills! I had to drive her down there - with no backup - but she didn't let me down!


As a replacement, I was given a Yamaha motor cycle - I think 75 cc but maybe a it more - a crash helmet and a PVC outfit of jacket and leggings. It was pretty much hopeless as forest vehicle and Robert Hutton (who had taken over Waianakarua Garage after Jim had retired) fitted a 72 tooth rear sprocket. This gave the machine power on the hills, but on the open road it was screaming at 70kmph. I lost a lot of time putting weather proof gear on and taking it off every time I went to check on something in the forest. I would get hot walking around then cold on the bike which caused me to have colds and flu!
Out by Trig J I was puttering along a narrow track [should have been walking] and over we went! It was quite steep and as I fell I was conscious of the fact that the bike was coming for me. I can't really say how I managed to dodge it but I did, and the bike went far down the hill - mainly sideways flipping over and over - sliding too. Bruised and sore, I walked down to the gang who were cutting a track through the bush towards Rutherford's - they hauled the bike out for me and other than broken mirrors and tail light, she survived and I was able to ride her to the garage for repairs.
It was not much use for delivering trees to the planing site, so Robert made a very nice trailer and fitted a draw-bar to the bike. This worked well, even if it did compromise my balance from time to time and was also good for collecting the empty tree cartons. But Bob arrived and said that 'it was not an official modification' frowning, there and then took the draw-bar off the bike! As he drove out the gate, I was putting it back on, but he sprang a surprise visit before I could take it off again! Luckily the planting season was finished, but he took the draw-bar and trailer to Dunedin with him. And my knuckles were rapped again!

Well I think they took the hint, and Jimmy, a brand new Suzuki LJ50 arrived. It was the first model I think and had a three cylinder, two stroke engine. It was a very light vehicle, and it did not have much compression so the engine could not hold it from speeding up going down steep hills - so you had to to use the brake a lot. But my, Jimmy could climb - pretty much where a bulldozer could go, Jimmy could. The Suzuki was a bit inclined to lift a front wheel when crossing ditches and the like which tingled the nerves until I became used to it. As it had a narrow wheelbase, side-slopes were a problem and it was more than once passengers leaned uphill [like in yachting] or three guys held me up on the downhill side. Once I was stuck so well in mud that I could not open the door - lucky Mick was nearby to pull me out with the D6!
I could carry a lot of trees by taking them out of the carton, just leaving them in their plastic bags! It saved a lot of walking time for the planters. But I took risks and luckily they came off. Out by Trig J we had a sudden dump of snow, so I went out late in the day by myself to recover the seedling trees - it is tricky in snow because you cant see rocks or holes and really, I guess the trees would have been fine! By careful maneuvering however I managed to extract all the trees and was home by dark.
While I was on long service leave, my replacement, Frank, ran Jimmy out of oil and seized the motor. The repairs were done in Dunedin and the workshop forgot to fill the oil tank, so when Frank picked Jimmy up it seized again going over the motorway!
Frank conveyed to the District Office that Jimmy was not a suitable vehicle - to me it was perfect but someone set the wheels in motion!

From the sublime to the ridiculous, Jimmy was replaced with a Nissan Patrol! A four litre petrol beast with absolute power to burn! Red in colour and impossible to keep clean - ow go my knuckles again! I once towed a caravan to Naseby in a howling [head] NW wind. The caravan swayed from side to side but when I went fast the caravan just flew behind me! I can never remember getting stuck in it but the bonnet was huge [I said half an acre but that's stretching the truth] and it felt uncanny at the top of a steep climb when I couldn't see what was over the bonnet! Dangerous really!
By now we had this big tandem trailer for transporting trees because we were planting larger areas now with a larger planting gang. The soil at Trotter's Gorge was much like that of Engorora and Manyata - sticky and slippery when wet. I had a full trailer load of trees and spades/planting bags to take up to the planting site and this involved a steepish climb up a razorback ridge. Well, it was a bit wet and half way up the vehicle sledged backwards! It was difficult to judge, but I managed to slide down without going over the edge - that would had been trouble! I put chains on the front wheels and had another go - I managed to climb further this time and fortunately while I sledged back, the chains gripped enough for me to direct my descent - the wheels were going forward, but we were still going backwards. Time was money and I was determined [foolishly] to get the trees up there. Close by there was a heap of Manuka planting poles and I strapped a heavy load of them to the bull-bar! She didn't miss a beat and I delivered the lot to the site!
Bulldog Kerr was driving the Patrol back with me in the passenger seat from Oamaru and he was always inclined to drive a bit fast, but he was faultless here. At Reidston, an elderly woman in a small car crossed suddenly in front of us - she was looking a the sign advertising tomatoes and fixed only on that. Bulldog tried to go around her and swerved sharply. We hit the rear of her car and we tipped up on two wheels- sitting up there for a time, almost rolling, then thumped back down on to four wheels.
The woman was shaken and unhurt so we comforted her until the law arrived to assess things. I took the woman over to a guy I knew nearby and she was given a cup of tea and was well cared for until someone picked her up.
The Patrol was drivable and I limped it back to HQ.

By now I was in charge of harvesting and the watchful eye of Laurie King was on me to run a cost-efficient operation, so I conned Bulldog into exchanging his vehicle, a white Diahatsu double cab. The pic is actually Toyota but anyway it was a bit like it. He liked the powerful Patrol but it was costly to run. The Diahatsu was diesel and very economical but it was a bit inclined to get stuck, luckily there were plenty of machines handy to extract me. In this vehicle I taught out older son to drive - a biggish truck on narrow roads, not easy for a young fella, but he mastered it in the end - even if I did lose some hair.

So its been a merry old range of vehicles over the years, none of them are the best - they all do their job. It is a matter of trying and finding out what each is capable of and driving within those constraints.

The night after the storm

The annual Forestry Ball was an icon on the North Otago social calendar and it so happened that we had prepared for the 1975 function on the 2nd of August. It was a frantic day still cleaning up from the storm and helping folk who had no means of helping themselves, but we decided to go ahead with the Ball as a celebration that we had survived the storm.

There was one problem though. The water tank - a header tank really was outside on the roof and yep, you guessed it, it was blown away. So we jerry-rigged another tank, but it was not hooked up to the water system and I took on the task of keeping it filled with the Wajax tanker. I worked in the bar as well, so kept a good eye on the water needs - hand washing and dunny flushing.

As the night proceeded, and the drinking increased, so did the need for water. The tanker hold 200 gallons and I had to go away and fill it twice!
But you would think forestry people were only interested in the booze, but not so we could boogey with the best of them! Even to modern music!

Working in the bar, you see things that should not be repeated, so I won't but one guy went missing and was found, with half pie hypothermia in a ditch beside a gorse hedge - he had 'slipped'. A young lady slipped and fell on to a table of glasses and bottles and was drenched but wrung out her clothes in the toilet and carried on dancing - she said body heat would do the final drying.
There were stories of the storm - some of them very tall but worth listening to.

As usual there were sore heads in the morning and sore bones because dancing seems to use different muscles to that of forestry work.

I was first back at the hall to clean up the next morning and there was a good amount of food left over - as well as beer. The cleanup lasted well into the night and we were all pleased to use physical work as a detox.

Nick the Greek

Albert's niece had been overseas and she brought a husband home with her. The fellow was from Greece and Albert asked if we could employ him because he was unable to find work elsewhere.
I had never met a Greek before but had always been interested in Greek mythology, and I realize not that Hollywood portray Greek heroes very well. I expected all Greeks to have bulging muscles like the people on the Zumba ad!

Nick was a short, skinny fellow with dark skin and black, curly hair. He could barely speak English and he smelled of garlic.

As it happened, at the we were pruning twelve year old Radiata Pine from ground level to six metres. This meant we would climb up the tree to about six metres and prune our way down. We used a jacksaw [with very sharp teeth] and it was sometimes better to prune some branches on the way up. But not everyone liked heights and Nick did not!

It was usually my role to train new workers and explain the technique and the reasons for doing that way and the very reason we did that work at all. Nick did not want to climb up the tree - so I climbed up there with him. He was shaking all the way, and I told him not to look down - but he did, even though he did understand me. He wasn't very strong either! And he couldn't use the saw - but he was very careful not to nick his hands. Later we were able to provide leather gloves - much to the chagrin of Gerry Kavanagh.
That first day, he completed eight trees - normally a person could do 100 -120. I could see we would have to be patient with this guy, and gradually he built up strength and ability and was able to fully partake in the general forestry work.

Men are men and Nick's workmates did not teach him English as I would have hoped. They delighted in teaching him swear-words and he thought that was normal. Nick smoked those stinking black cigarette things and his teeth were in a poor state [I didn't expect that because of those Hollywood movies - I thought Greeks had pearls in their mouths]. Anyway, one day Nick complained about toothache and I took him into my own dentist, Mr. Sligo. It was the first time Nick had been to a dentist and the pain shocked him - so he swore and abused Mr. Sligo! I was embarrassed about this and the combination of stinky cigarette, garlic and rotten teeth on his breath then the swearing, so I apologized to my dentist, but he seemed unworried.

Nick had a hard time of from his workmates really because they did not like the foreign smells and the 'different' attitudes, so they did not allow him too much leeway but I did not intervene very much because he did not modify his approach even when he spoke better English. But he stuck it out.
I found this encounter to interesting from the point of view of social interaction.

Archie

Archie Woodrow used to a cobbler, working at McDiarmid's in Oamaru. He used to drive the worker's bus from Hampden to Oamaru in the morning and and back at night. The bus was put on by Waianakarua Garage in the days of Jim Robertson and Bert Bennett and as people gradually preferred driving themselves, Archie ended up driving Commer van - pink in colour (if that means anything).
Archie lived almost dead center of Herbert township with his little wife and kids - kids that I did not get to know really but it was one of those families that staunchly support each other. They has looney red dogs that yapped if you called!
Archie would head South about the time I got out of bed and if he didn't see a light, he would toot to wake me. I had never asked him to do that, and I guess he did the same to other folk - I don't know.

Well the worker's bus finally stopped because it was unprofitable and McDiarmid's shed their cobbler. So Archie came to me looking for a job.
The fitness level of a cobbler does not match that required to be a forestry worker and I know very well that anyone starting forestry work must go through a pain barrier that can last weeks. Archie was past 50 years old when he started and he never once complained about his sore bones. This is probably a tribute to his nature of always looking on the bright side and that infected the rest of his workmates thus making them easier to manage.
Whenever the work became tough or unpleasant, Archie would quote, 'Well after all we're luck to have a job!' and there was no answer to that but to get on with the job.

One day Archie and his crew were walking down a track to begin work when he snapped a Douglas Fir branch to avoid it flicking in his face. Unfortunately the branch shattered and a small spike punctured his eyeball. He didn't realize that it was actually punctured, instead he thought he had some debris under his eyelid. Each crew carried a first aid kit, and so he washed his eye with Optrex. This just caused him more pain, so eventually I recieved a radio call to pick him up. Of course I could see nothing in his eye, and his pain was more than obvious, so I took him into hospital where they quickly saw what was wrong - there was a splinter actually embedded in his eyeball! I left him in hospital and called at his home to tell his wife what had happened.

I usually took people who had been injured either into their doctor or to hospital. We had to file a report on all accidents and there were certain forms to fill in for ACC purposes. I actually preferred to take people to hospital rather than their doctor because hospitals tended to give less time off to recuperate. Thinking back that may sound miserly but I felt that I was responsible to the joe-blow taxpayer to be entirely fair and I tried to tread that path.
I guess I became fairly hardened to broken bones and blood, and I used to stay ' as sort of comfort' actually with the person being treated. My worst experience was when a temporary worker whacked an axe into his knee! It was a bit of a mess and he wanted to go to his doctor rather than hospital. There was debris in the wound and the doctor started by putting several injections directly into the wound. This time I was not quite as hard as I thought and felt a bit woozy so sat down and didn't watch any more! I'm always amazed and medical people and their incredible skills.

One day after a cold day's work, Archie came briefly into my office to tell me that I may not see him the next day because he felt like he was in for a dose of 'that bone flu'.
On arriving home, he told his wife that he was feeling crook and went straight to bed. A few minutes later, she took him a cup of tea and found him sitting up in bed with his eyes open - stone dead!
We bid him farewell in an appropriate manner- for forestry people.