Trush Song

When I was but a lad, I used to tell my Mum that I could hear a Thrush, high in the walnut tree singing,'Good morning to you, good morning to you!' As if it was personal.

On my early morning stroll, I hear the same call. There is a Thrush sitting on the high point of a Macrocarpa tree [the same tree each morning] and he/she spends the best part of an hour saying 'good morning' as the sun rises.

I have no idea why they do this but it is their habit, no doubt corresponding with like minded fowl. It is in competition with Blackbirds, Bellbirds and Tuis. As well as a huge flock of Starlings congregating in a stand of Eucalyptus at this time of the year.

We have been critical of the early settlers because they brought with them mistakes like rabbits and hares, gorse and old man's beard, to name a few.

Presumably they brought Thrushes and Blackbirds for their song and I don't blame them for that.

Thrushes and Blackbirds pay for their robbery of strawberries, raspberries and currants with their song.

Not so Starlings, whose warble I enjoy but generally  have no beauty in their song - they do a job though in consuming grass grub but we pay for that with the mess they create.

House Sparrows too  turned out to be a dud, but Hedge Sparrows are pleasant enough - both to look at and their plaintive song.

Nostalgic Englishmen introduced the Skylark and the reward us country folk with their pleasant trill flying high, then dropping like a stone and cunningly walking some 20 metres to their nest. They do little or no damage to the environment.

But I like the Thrush

Tree Deliveries

There is  logistical process in delivering trees to the planting site which started in the morning loading the vehicle with trees - usually before the work force arrived. This turned out to my task and to take them out on to the planting site.

The efficiency of the planting job depended to some extent in have trees available to the planters without them having to walk far to fill their planting bags. So on occasion, I would do that by carrying them on my back - but more often, using a vehicle of some sort.

Here we have an A2 Bedford and an old K Bedford, The K Bedford was a gang transport and the A2 was used [among other things] for tree deliveries and for going to the Milton nursery to collect trees. One load was really a day's work because in the early days we were using puddled bundles. So they had to be unloaded 'on the hill', rather than in a shed as we would later with cartoned trees.

We inherited an old Commer, a cast-off from Naesby Forest - of course she was yellow and had an aluminum canopy. She also had a crash gearbox so you had to double the clutch each time you changed gear - not everyone could manage her. Generally she was slow but the low gear was a crawler gear really and as long as I had reasonable traction, she could climb steep slopes. Many a time though Mick had to retrieve me with the Cat D6. He would also tow me using the truck as a trailer to get trees into the site. Sometimes the situations were tricky though.

A frost plug at the back of the motor rusted badly and was deemed irreparable, so the old Commer was taken from me - well I delivered her to Conical Hill 'for disposal'.

So to replace her I was provided with a Yamaha motorbike and some wet weather gear [a fairly unfriendly act I would say]. It was not really a lot of use for what we required, so a 72 tooth rear sprocket was installed - great on the hill, but screamed on the open road! Robert Hutton built a frame to hook a trailer to and he built a trailer so I could tow a load. Well it was ok, but heavy loads of trees took control sometimes and we would tip over on occasion. Our Mechanical overseer guy, Bob Williams did not appreciate the towing frame being added, nor did he like the trailer as such a thing was a 'unit'. He undid the thing and took it away with the trailer. Luckily after the planting season. The bike and I parted company at the back of Trig J and she rolled down the steep hill until some Manuka bushes held her up. The repair bill had to go to District Office, which is why [after the please explain] I was awarded the Suzuki LJ 50.

Jimmy was a three cylinder two stroke little power-horse and valuable on the forest. For tree deliveries, I would take the trees from their carton, [they were in plastic bags of 100] and carefully stack them in the back and on the passenger seat. Out on the hill I would have to cover them and be mindful of tree care, but the system worked well. One time though, I had trees laid out and there was heavy snow, so I went out on my own to recover the trees. The landscape and tracks changed with the snow and really it was dangerous - compounded by being on my own out there. Happily all was well and the task was completed - if with the odd tricky moment.

As the programme became bigger we received a big, red Nissan Patrol, short wheelbase with a 4 litre petrol engine. This was luxury plus for me and, I always thought a bit over the top.
The vehicle was brilliant for pulling the fire trailer as it had all this power.
At Trotters Gorge [Kemp's] the roading crew were a bit slow and planting was well ahead of them. I ferried the planting gang into the planting area - in the morning the track was hard with frost and in the
 afternoon, greasy with the thaw! But I had created 'rail tracks' during the afternoon trips that were so deep, I just had to follow them.
We had a huge tandem trailer and I would daily go into Oamaru where there would be a wagon load of trees. I could fit the whole load on the trailer and haul it up to the planting site.
Trailers upset your stability and I recall one instance where I was trying to climb a steep, narrow ridge to deliver trees, but despite the forward gear, we were sledging backwards - I'm not quite sure how I kept the trailer straight.
Rather than abandon the idea, I put tyre chains on the front wheels but still could not get up that ridge. So I strapped a big bundle of heavy Manuka planting poles to the bull-bar and that gave me enough traction to deliver the trees.
Those very trees have now been harvested.

The Planting Season

As I headed out for my usual walk this dark, frosty morning, I saw the Blakely Pacific planting crew heading out to start the seasons planting. I like planting and the concept of creating a forest or perhaps replanting one so this started me thinking again.

First, we never called them a 'planting crew', they were a planting gang! Nothing to do with those hoods who create mayhem and are mostly outside the law!

Secondly it is still early in June. 1st of June is the start of winter though some may argue that winter actually start on the shortest day, 21st of June. I doesn't matter a lot.

I like to start plant as late as possible much to the chagrin of the nursery. Of course this depends on the size of the programme and if you have a fixed sized gang, then you must know their daily production and work out when best to start.

The reason for this is simple. Why plant out trees that will have to withstand the forces of nature's winter, any earlier than is necessary? Unless the winter is very mild, the seedlings will put on nil growth so there is no advantage - other than time constraints - to plant early. Mind you with this attitude, I have had my backside kicked on more than one occasion because it upsets the nurseries and upper management disapprove.

 A major change that I have noted over my forestry career is seedling quality.

During earlier times while the nurseryman may have been growing to a certain seedling specification (spec) whether he attained it or not was a bit arbitrary because those were the seedlings available, so those were the seedlings provided.

The seedling were in bundles of 25, tied at the root collar with flax [or sometimes twine] and puddled. Puddling is dipping the roots in a watery mud, to prevent drying out. The trees arrived on site in bulk and were put into pits - the style of which differed wherever you go but tightly bulk planted so they could be temporarily stored. We used to even make beehives out of them. Create a large circle with the roots pointing inwards and build it up to a dome shape. Trees cannot be stored for long this way.

However with these trees that probably would be called 'substandard' today,  we achieved at Herbert better than 75% survivals and all the areas have now been harvested for sawlogs and replanted.

Now to put my nurseryman's hat on, forest companies have progressively required a higher specification, and at prices that allow 'no fat'. They allow a low rate for seedlings outside specification and packaging of some sort is now required. Seedlings are no longer puddled.
Tree establishment on forests is much easier these days because of better land preparation (diggers have made a huge difference) and followup tree releasing is aerial and with chemicals.
With mycorrhiza [a symbiotic fungi] already established from the previous crop, new seedlings are going to perform better anyway.
There has been a lot of 'tree improvement/breeding' carried out over the years, mainly in increasing stem volume to afford a better overall financial return, but none of that breeding has gone into a smaller branch size. This is important as wood quality depends on knot size, which of course follows branch size.

 Early plantings, at least in the South Island were carried out using grubbers [some call them mattocks]. As in this pic of a school planting programme, the tradition grubber had an axe-like piece on the back, but that bit was often cut off to make the tool lighter.But the handle was the same as a pick handle and not so easy to work with. Later purpose built grubbers with a thinner handle were produced and they made life a bit easier! [Not those lighter lighter, rabbiter's adze type]


Some of the jobs we carried out are worth remembering.
At Omihi, on Mt. Cass we were planting in nasella  tussock areas - to rid the area of this noxious weed. The area had been sprayed with Dalapon to kill the tussock and this was only moderately successful. There was no road access, so we had to carry our gear and tree seedlings into the area - about an hour - and we had to grub the tussock plant out completely, then plant the tree using a three hit planting method, which roughly cultivates the soil.
Later in the season a track was established and access was better and the work a little easier.

At Craigeburn we were planting trees on shingle screes above the bushline in an effort to arrest erosion. The species were hardier exotic species and the winsome of the exercise would be questioned today.
Again it was humping the materials up the mountain on our backs and we formed a terrace on the shingle scree, held in place with short wall of hand cut Manuka scrub and stakes driven dug into the rock. The trees were planted on the little terrace so formed.

On the Hope Saddle, we were planting Larch in reasonably good conditions (burnt over scrub). All of us Ranger Trainees tried for the ultimate tally of 2000 trees planted in a day. I think we all achieved the tally by going without a food break and with someone keeping the trees supplied to the planter.
Larch trees are light to carry and the roots were well trimmed.
Tallies like this are really unacceptable because the quality of planting is somewhat low, but even with spade planting, it dented my pride if I couldn't plant 1000 in a day's work - well planted I might add.

These guys are planting using spades. Spades were used first in the Central North Island pumice country and as always, the North Island wanted to impost their techniques on the South Island.

In the end we were given the 'order' that that we must change our planting technique to use spades. Of course we resisted like King Canute, but we could not withstand the tide.
Of course there were no purpose built spade made available to us so Robert Hutton at the Waianakarua Garage cut down garden spades and welded small plates to push down on with the foot. I still use one of those spades today! However in the interest of improvements we had Robert manufacture straight bladed spaded that proved to be very good - nice long blades. After a time Atlas put out proper spades that are in common use today.
A bad spade planter, is better than a bad grubber planter. And pretty much this is true.

Our soils were heavier and tighter than pumice and we tried several techniques to carry out the planting operation. The one I developed for our planing was three cut parallel - in line with the slope - about one and a half centimeters apart and one bisecting them and lever open a good planting hole. All spade planting is assisted by deep ripping, but it is not always possible.

Of course contract or bonus workers will try and shortcut the technique and I have no problem with that, as long as the trees are well planted.

Most winters I took on small planting jobs, mainly to help out farmers who I was encouraging to plant trees.

I did several years for David Forrest and was caught out by frost on one occasion.

It is necessary to keep seedlings fresh, and they do not keep well in cartons for much over three or four days. I was planting on the weekends so you order the trees three days in advance and then you can't return them to the nursery. 

Well I was to plant Cupressus macrocarpa in the fertile gulley bottoms, but there was a series of hard frosts. The soil was like concrete and the only way I could plant the seedling was to cut a square of frozen soil and lift it out of the way, then plant the tree on non frozen soil. Fairly hard work and time consuming - I didn't reach my target and didn't make good money. I never asked for a higher price either.

Reunion Day

The Reunion held (25 Feb 2012) at the old Herbert Forest Headquarters Camping ground proved successful and thirty four ex NZFS people attended plus two from Blakely Pacific.

I was worried about the weather and on the Friday I erected a bivvy to provide some shelter, even though we had the use of the 'old wet weather shelter', which is now the camp's ablution block.
Lucky Brian Grumball was around because he helped lift the heavy tarpaulin over the ridge pole I had built. It was a windy, rainy day and the corner peg kept blowing out, but in the end all was ready for the day.

Barry Wells, the local Blakely Pacific manager had told me that they would fund any food, coffee and tea required plus the bus trip around the forest. So it was just a matter of arranging the supply and collecting everything up. Bill Hare, from Hampden is a local man with a bus, so I arranged for him to be the carrier.

I set up a small display - three old chainsaws loaned by Dean Harrison, the 1986 newspapers (other blog) and some of the photos I had printed off.
The idea of the day was a chat and an ongoing, help yourself tea/coffee sandwich/ savory/pie followed by a bus ride through part of the forest.

Each had the chance to take home a Lancewood tree seedling to commemorate the day.

Andrew Cocking (Christchurch), Barry Wells (Timaru), both of Blakely Pacific.










Heather Turner, Colin Bartrum, Laurie Hore, Doug Turner. Laurie was the first NZFS employee at Herbert Forest and he was one of the guys who planted the first tree. Doug and Heather Turner lived in the Herbert Township and moved into Oamaru, then to Alexandra. Doug was a Leading Hand and one of the men in my salvage logging team.
Colin I have written about - he was a bit crook that day because he suffers from diabetes.


Alistair McKenzie was a young trainee who had worked on the forest. His father was a Forest Ranger at Otautau. Alister is still associated with forestry, but I'm not sure where he lives. I didn't get the chance to talk to him for long.
He came along with his wife.





David Caldwell, Andy Neil & Sharon Neil nee Milligan. David came to us as a young fellow [local farm boy] and soon found himself in the thinning gang. He has a is a very good plasterer and runs his own business. Sharon was in what we called 'The F Troop' a gang of female workers. Married to Andy, Sharon works in the Farmers store.



Laurie Hore's wife, Mick Hill, Phil Wilkie. Mick was the forest bulldozer driver and a pig hunting mate of mine - we performed our share of mischief over the years. Mick formed many of the roads on the North and South Blocks of the forest.
Phil was in my salvage logging team. Previously he was a farmer on a block that was not fully sustainable. He worked at Clark's Four Mill at Maheno. In a previous life he was partner in a carrying business. The old bugger is 89!


Robert Hutton and Mrs Williamson. Mrs Williamson was Uncle John's [Jack Williamson] wife. Jack died 1982, so she has been alone all that time. We were very pleased to see her there.
Robert used to own the Waianakarua Garage and besides being a good mechanic, he efficiently carried out many small engineering jobs. Another local farm boy, he sold the garage as times became tougher and became a useful member of the forest workforce. Now he is a mechanic at the Herbert Garage.
Behind on the left is Charlie James, an ex contract bulldozer driver/owner and later owner/driver of the logging truck servicing Bennett's Sawmill. Then below the cam is Geoff Herbert, known as 'Herb' who was a silvicultural contractor. Hard luck often followed Herb who is now a firewood cutter/merchant.

Mrs Williamson and IHD









IHD, Percy Parker, Chris Mains, Alf Milligan. Percy was the 2iC Dunedin District Office. He was one of the instructor on my NZFS induction course. I have known him for a long period of time and found him very good to work with. Retired now and 86 he suffers from melanomas on his legs. Chris mains was an Environmental Forestry Ranger based in Invercargill. EF meant that his main responsibility was animal control but these guys were responsible for the protected indigenous forest estate. Percy and Chris live next door to each other in Dunedin.
Alf Milligan was OiC Herbert Forest at the time of the NZFS demise. He had come from Berwick Forest where had come through the grades starting as a Reg 130 worker. Now retired in Oamaru.

Margaret Wilson & Jim [Skip] Wilson. Margaret is the daughter of Herb Welsh, one of the forest old timers and Jim was one of the forest workers. He was in my logging team and later was appointed as Leading Hand. The Skip name was because of his walk which we thought like 'Skippy the Bush Kangaroo'.
Skip is now retired and the couple live in the Herbert township.




The nose of Colin Bartrum, Heather Turner, Mick Hill, Mrs Williamson & IHD in the wet weather shelter - in the background you can see the board with the papers and photos.







A nondescript photo but the only one that singles out Ross Ewing, who is sitting. Ross is the son of Russell Ewing the man who I relieved when I was first at Herbert. Ross worked on the forest for a couple of years then became a post cutter contracting to to Fletchers. Ross' off-sider was Henry Wedderall who did not attend.
Ross is now retired and lives at Glenavy.




By the time we took this group photo, Laurie Hore, Doug and Heather Turner and Colin Bartrum had left. I have the list of all the people who attended and another list of RIP's, AWOL's & LWOP's. There were 36 RIP's but I suspect there are many more who were not added to the list. As always a few who said they would attend, did not show and there were others who despite contact did not reply.

Herbert Forest Open Day 1 March 1986

As I'm remembering 31 March 1987 when the New Zealand Forest Service ceased to exist and arranging for a reunion of the Herbert crew, my neighbor Pat Gibson gave me some newspaper pages advertizing the 1 March 1986 Open Day. Pat is the wife of an old mate, the late Keith Gibson who was Sawyer/Manager of Bennett's [Herbert] sawmill. He strongly supported us guys who were made redundant on the closure of the forest.

I have been able to copy the photos from the Oamaru Mail, but the text could not be transferred onto this blog, so I will type it out because it shows what the organization NZFS was.
Also, the Oamaru Library are putting Oamaru Mail archive on to microfiche but they were not able to locate this copy so I will type it all out for posterity.
It should be noted that any time I have had material published in newspapers, there is something wrong - this is because you can't expect reporters to have a full understanding fully what we were about.

Herbert Forest Gate Sign

Herbert Forest Open Day

The New Zealand Forest Service as a government department, carries out a wide range of responsibilities on behalf of the government and on behalf of the people of New Zealand.
These responsibilities which are divided into trading and non-trading activities are set out in legislation known as the Forests & Rural Fires Act of 1949 and in a number of other acts.
Under the Forests Act, the Minister of Forests is given the responsibility of carrying out all matters of forest policy affecting State Forest land. In practice the Minister delegates most of the work involved to the Director General of Forests and his staff.

The Forests Act also states that the functions of the department, which are basically to control and manage all State Forest land consisting of both exotic and indigenous forest.
The forests may be grown for timber or other forest produce, or perhaps to stabilize land thus preventing soil erosion and protecting water catchment areas.
Other uses for State Forests are for recreation and educational purposes and to preserve specific areas for scientific study.

Control and management of exotic forests includes everything to do with trees from the buying of land to the tending and pruning of the trees, followed by the sale of the timber or the finished products.

In the case of indigenous forests it means greater emphasis on maintaining the forests, following the concepts of a sustained yield, i.e. ensuring that the number of growing trees are sufficient to replace those felled.

It is the responsibility of the department to safeguard the forests from fire and wild animals, and to carry out scientific studies and research into the prevention of tree diseases.
In addition, the New Zealand Forest Service helps develop new local and overseas markets for forest products, promotes the use of wood, ans services the timber industry. It also controls the import and export of forest products and is responsible for the control of forest diseases.

Historical Background.

The State Forest Service came into being in 1919. Previously the Department of Lands and Survey controlled all Crown-owned forests, supervised the selling of timber and had begun to plant some introduced tree species. Some forest areas were set aside as reserves, to preserve the vegetation in its natural state.
But this was not sufficient to satisfy some people who became alarmed at the rate natural forests were being cleared to make way for farms and provide timber for building.

The government of the day devised a policy to provide for future timber requirements by maintaining a timber 'bank' of fast growing exotic species. A new department, the State Forest Service was formed to put this policy into practice.

Later, the Forests Act (1921-22) envisaged that all Crown forest land valuable for timber, or to conserve soil and water, should become State Forest, but it was not until the new Act was passed in 1949 that this became legislation.

Since then amendments to the Act allow the changed name New Zealand Forest Service to:

• Provide forest parks.
• Declare areas to be set aside for specific purposes such as ecological or recreational reserves.
• Encourage public use of State Forests.
• Seek greater public involvement in how forests are managed.

Organization

The Director-General is the head of of the New Zealand Forest Service and is responsible to the Minister of Forests.
To help the Director-General carry out the many tasks connected with looking after many thousands of hectares of forests and forest lands there is a staff which possess a a variety of special skills.
As well as people trained in forestry and forestry science, NZFS employs many specialists. These include; architects, landscape planners, engineers, mechanics, surveyors. cartographers, draftsmen, economists, lawyers, accountants, technicians, clerks and others.
All of these people are attached to either a Conservancy or to Head office; Forestry research is carried out by scientists and technicians attached to the Forestry Research Institute.
The NZFS also has two demonstration sawmills, one at Waipa near Rotorua and one at Conical Hills in Southland.

Here I am measuring a P. radiata - dbh 76cm
Height 45m

Here I am with the Log Skidder

One of the ads supporting the Open Day
As it happened, I ended up working for Ford's

Forest Service has wide ranging responsibilities

Herbert Forest lying 25km Southwest of Oamaru, rises to 500m on the foothills of the Horse Range. Most of the forest is planted in exotics - predominantly Radiata pine, but included are small stands of Douglas fir, Larch and Corsican pine.
It also contains probably the only remnant virgin native forest in the area.
Forest establishment began in 1948 when planting in gorse infested former grazing land got under way.

Branch roads from State Highway 1 give easy access to the forest and its interesting walking tracks and picnic areas spots. Scenic drives through the forest overlook the North Otago coastline and the Central Otago ranges inland.
A feature of the forest is a network of walking tracks linked by roads crossing both native forest and exotic plantation. In the Herbert [North] Block, this circuit takes about seven hours to walk.
One section, Podocarp Track, has some fine stands of Podocarps with an unusual component of huge Pokaka trees. It takes about thirty minutes to walk the top loop of this track and about three hours for the whole track. Glenburnie loop, another segment takes about two hours.
Swallows walk is a one and a half loop track, so named for the stream junction resembling a swallow's tail. There is an interesting cave to explore on this walk. The third track in the circuit, Hood's Creek track, will take about three hours to walk. One of the highlights is a very attractive waterfall.
Near the North edge of the forest a short twenty minute walk leads to the neighboring Glencoe Domain, close to the Northern branch of the Waianakarua River.

A relatively recent addition to the Herbert Forest is the Trotters Gorge Block that encircles the Trotters Gorge Scenic Reserve.
The reserve is a delightful grassed picnic spot surrounded by native bush and bordedn one side by the Trotters Creek. There are two tracks in the Scenic Reserve - a bush track leads to the tops where a great view of the gorge is the reward. The other track is a Landrover track leading to the Trotters Gorge hut. This hut is the private property of the University of Otago to whom all booking for its use should be directed.

One of the most popular picnic and camping sites in the forest is the open grassed area planted in trees and shrubs near the forest headquarters. The facilities include a shelter, toilets and barbeque areas and it is only a short strol to the Waianakarua River which has safe swimming holes.

The development of walking tracks is changing the use of the forest, but hunting is still important. Introduced animals in the forest include red deer, wild pigs and opossum, with a few wild sheep.
Opossum hunters take precedence from May to September. Pig, red deer and wild sheep may be shot at other times. Permits are required for hunting and are available from the forest headquarters. Please note however, hunting is permitted only at weekends.

Itinerary Map

Forest Location Map

The NZFS ad - interesting imagery

Ad for the local store. now closed

Ad for Whirl-wide Helicopters - sadly, Murray had a fatal accident some time later.

Forest offers recreation

Herbert Forest is having an open day on Saturday, 1 March and the public are invited to come along and see a forest at work.
Herbert forest is adjacent to State Highway 1 some 95km North of Dunedin and 25 km South of Oamaru.

The 5500 hectare of Herbert Forest are managed by the New Zealand Forest Service under a multiple use policy. The main use of the exotic pine plantations is for timber production for both the domestic and export markets, while some native forest has been left on steep land areas to conserve soil and slow water runoff.
Many areas of the forest, both native and exotic are available for recreational purposes with several walking tracks and picnic areas provided.

The aim if the open day is to enable the public to meet some of the many aspects of forestry. At the forest headquarters there will be displays illustrating tree seeding production, growing trees on the farm, treatment and the use of timber, environmental protection of the forest and fire protection and control. Sophisticated fire equipment will also be on display and there will be an hourly helicopter fire-fighting display.

A free bus tour will be operating in the forest throughout the day. Buses will be operating as a shuttle service, with buses departing all stops every ten minutes. The tour will take about three hours and involves four stops at which the public will have a chance to see pruning and thinning, post cutting and peeling, skidder logging, as well as having the opportunity to take a short guided bush walk. As part of the bus tour there will be a tree height guessing competition with a prize awarded to the winner.

Barbeque and picnic facilities will be available at the NZFS headquarters adjacent to the carpark.

Maheno Tavern ad - classic

The Mill House was in its heyday at this time!



Our local garage put in an ad, as did a plant and pets shop in Oamaru - now closed


GT Gillies are no more but a service station uses the Gillies name.
When we had new vehicles these people serviced them.

Old Photo Album cont.

The Forest HQ area taken in the late '70's from the hill opposite. The yellow gorse area in the foothills is part of Bert Moir's farm and as it was a fire hazard, so we regularly burnt it for him. Later we purchased most of the area from him.
The 4 Bay garage dominates the site - there are pics of its construction.

Loading thinnings from Cpt 4. Waitaki Transport were the carriers and Lewis Hore was the contractor.
Skippy was the usual Waitaki Transport driver and he began carting the first posts out of the forest for McCullum & Co, loading them by hand!

Logs from Cpt 13 bound for Waimate. Jim Bisett owned the mill and we had to be on our toes to make sure the correct credits came through before to logs left the forest.

The Manatu Block, Trotters Gorge was purchased from Errol George who had been a helicopter pilot and carried out aerial spraying contracts on the forest.
His house was opposite Katiki beach and he told me that once he was nearly electrocuted when he pulled in synthetic electric fence wire, and when it let go, flew into the overhead wires!
This area was notorious for holes in the ground with bottle shaped cavities underneath, very dangerous to fall into!

Radiata pine in Cpt 21 struggled through the gorse. Middle Ridge is to the right and down on the left, Queen's Road can be seen.
In the background to the right is Mt. Charles.
North Otago looks dry at the time!

Murray McMillan takes off on a spraying mission.
We used to keep accurate records, especially about the weather to study the effect of chemicals on the target weeds in differing conditions.

The Forest HQ office as it was when I arrived, April 1965.
My Commer Cob parked there carried my gear, dogs and a good few dead pigs back in the day!

Vehicles used back in the day!
1140, the old K Bedford gang truck.
3624, A2 Bedford with a removable canopy [dog box] sometimes used for gang transport but usually it was an admin vehicle.

Salvage logging - Robin May. Part of Cpt 39.
By this time log sales were more reliable and most of these logs went for export.






Lewis Hore with his skidder on the side of Middle Ridge Road. he was thinning the Douglas fir on the opposite side of the road. They were nice small logs.

From the Manatu Block looking North to South Peak. There is now a 'tuft' of trees on top of South Peak because when we asked for submissions from the public on how we should manage the area, one person requested that the top of South Peak should not be planted. Peter Kennedy planted trees in his initials as a joke - perhaps expecting them to be pulled out. They never were and we received no complaint.

From the top of the Beehive Bluff looking South to Moeraki.








A very young forest [North Block] circa 1965. Mt. Misery is visible left of center and right of center is the Devil's Elbow.
The mature stand toward the foreground are private stands.






Waitaki Transport carried a lot of the road metal - on the South Block we had our own pit of schist rock. It was applied fairly heavily and from time to time mishaps occur.
This truck was too close to the edge and its load shifted. There was always heavy machinery to pull the truck back onto the road.

Land preparation was easier after salvage logging in Cpt 20. The area was windrowed using a bulldozer. These days windrowing is more effectively done using diggers, which seem to be able to sit on very steep areas.