Thriving timber community deep in South Westland

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32733, 9 October 1971, Page 12

Thriving timber community deep in South Westland

(By

JOHN DREW

Boat day at Jackson’s Bay is a big occasion for residents of the miniature township which has sprung up at Okuru. deep in the south of Westland. Twice a month the motor-ship Awanui arrives to pick up a cargo of timber.

This remote oasis of community development is in the most sparsely inhabited region of New Zealand’s southern fiordland. It has evolved along with one of the Sooth Island’s biggest timber mills.

In only six years Okuru has become a township with independent electricity supply, road, water supply, modem fire fighting services, three-teacher school, wellstocked village shop and a social hall.

Television is piped from Christchurch, by companyfinanced relay stations across the Alps. The timber output of the mill is now so large that most of it is shipped at Jackson’s Bay. This is the southernmost point attainable by road on the West Coast From there the timber goes to Auckland and some to Australia. General exodus The population of Okuru township looks forward to loading day at Jackson’s Bay (20 miles to the south) as a popular break in routine production at the mill. The Okuru mill office knows by radio well in advance the day when the Awanui will arrive and word quickly spreads round the camp that the boat is on time.

Early in the morning on boat day bushmen and mill workers pile into trucks for Jackson’s Bay and the Okuru mill cookhouse staff go too (complete with food and equipment). At Jackson’s Bay employees of the mill combine to load their fortnight’s output of logs and boards. These have been stockpiled near the wharf since the ship’s last trip. Captain Philip Dare, master of the Northern Steamship Company’s Awanui, says he enjoys his regular vjsits to Jackson’s Bay. He keeps a keen eye on loading operations from the bridge. His second mate, Mr E. J. Harris, supervises the stowing of timber from closer quarters on deck. And during lulls in loading the captain can sometimes be seen taking a lunch-time stroll on the waterfront

The Okuru mill village is

largely the brainchild of Mr Jack Murray, one of the New Zealand timber industry’s best-known personalities. After some 40 years experience in all phases of timber production in the North Island he was engaged by the Carter organisation to set up the Okuru establishment. Big boss He is 6ft 4in and 17st and much of the construction of the big mill has been designed on similar massive lines. Huge beams support the mill structure in which are housed hundreds of tons of machinery. This handles great logs as if they were match sticks and turns them into finished grades of building timber. Mr Murray was born into the timber industry. He joined his father in the bush when he was 14 and learned the business the hard way. He recalls early depression years when he used to work at pit-sawing big logs by hand ... “when a man would be Heeding at the ears with exhaustion at the end of a day’s work.” Years of experience in the timber industry in the North Island helped to make Mr Murray (61) liked and respected by his workers.

When he accepted the job to build the Okuru mill some of his long-standing North Island associates and employees came with him. One of these, Mr Lou King, has been with Mr Murray for more than 40 years. Mr King drives a bulldozer in the bush. When Mr Murray visits the felling sites the two men (mates for so many years) use honorifics in their daily whimsical greeting. Recollection of hard times has influenced Mr Murray’s determination to make conditions the best possible for workers. He has made the mill at Okuru a model of up-to-date facilities. Mill by the sea The mill has a picturesque setting beside the sea. Wellpainted dwellings of mill employees grouped beside the main south highway could easily be mistaken by passing motorists for modem motels.

One of the buildings is the mill’s own two-unit motel. It has been built to accommodate business visitors and the company’s directors when visiting the area. The well appointed units have fly screens on all windows. They are also sometimes used by newcomers to the staff who enjoy this pleasant introduction to their sur-

roundings before moving into a house of their own. Development of new areas for timber recovery depends largely on loading to get heavy machinery into remote bush and to take out big loads of logs.

The roads pennit felling of timber in forests where no Maori or pakeha had set foot before. Some of the trees felled in this area are matai, which Mr Murray estimates are more than 2000 years old. It is possible to discern a hush of respectful silence among bushmen in the forest during the moments preceding the fall of one of these ancient giants. Forest roads After felling, the logs are hauled hundreds of yards through the bush by steel cables. They are hoisted on to transporters by tackle rigged high on a big bare tree trank left standing after bush is felled.

As a consequence Mr Murray has had to combine expert roadmaking with his duties as mill manager and designer. Within six years he has built about 26 miles of roads and several bridges to reach areas of unfelled bush. The new bush roads are

scientifically constructed with underlays of felled timber to take the big axle loads of giant transporters. These take the logs sometimes 15 or 20 miles out to the mill.

To reach new felling areas great tree trunks were used

to build new bridges over mountain rivers. These used to be washed away in high floods until Mr Murray began building them lower and well below peak flood level. This obviated big pile-ups of flood debris mainly responsible for bridge destruction.

An added test of Mr Murray’s strength came two years after the mill was built when fire by night destroyed most of it. Undaunted, he set about the job of rebuilding and it is said at Okuru that he replanned most of the complicated layout, and mechanical sequences of timber handling out of his head. Now the mill has two fire stations, one with two tenders close to the residential part of the settlement, and another with a full-sized fire engine to deal with any big fires at the mill itself.

Rampart of boulders

While fire risk must continue a hazard at Okuru, the mill management has constantly to plan against threats from another powerful enemy, the sea. The mill is built close to the foreshore where combinations of big seas and high tides have earlier caused flooding at the mill. To effectively counter this threat, Mr Murray has piled giant boulders excavated in quarries beside roads he has built in the bush. These boulders are systematically dumped along the

foreshore and reinforced with steel stakes deep in the sand. These make a rampart to keep the waters at bay and prevent flooding of the mill. Future in North Although the mill has one of the biggest outputs of indigenous timber in New Zealand Mr Murray says the New Zealand timber industry has its greatest future in the exotic man-made forests of the North Island. Carter Consolidated, Ltd, is currently involved in a multi-million dollar venture with two Japanese companies to construct an integrated pulp-making plant and sawmill at Whirinaki, near Napier.

The development, being carried out under the consortium title of Carter-Oji-Kokusaka Pan Pacific, Ltd, will utilise the rights to 220 million cubic feet of timber in the Kaingaroa and related forests.

In a further move recently, Carter Consolidated announced plans to merge with a Hawke’s Bay timber company, Robert Holt and Sons, Ltd. The merger will lend considerable strength to the Napier pulp mill project. The combined operations of Carter-Holt Holdings, Ltd, will give the new group complete marketing coverage of the North Island, backed by extensive raw material resources in both the North and South Islands.