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.