A press from the past restored to working glory
A piece of historic farming machinery was put to the test at Hawke’s Bay’s Timahanga Station last week. Kate Taylor went to investigate.
Careful, it’s a wee bit older than I am, says 79-year-old farmer Jack Roberts with a cheeky laugh as he watches his nephew press a bale of wool in a restored pocket press.
It’s a family affair in the wool room of the Timahanga Station woolshed with Jack and his son Alan Roberts and nephew Renata Apatu from the neighbouring Ngamatea Station.
About 60 friends, family and wool-minded agribusiness people gather at Timahanga on the Napier Taihape road to have a look at the tiny wooden wool press and have a chat over afternoon tea (rural style … ladies a plate).
Even the toilets have the rural touch with the choice of rams or ewes on the doors.
The Roberts/apatu story began with the Fernie brothers at Ngamatea. John Fernie’s daughter Annie married Joseph Roberts. One of their sons, Lawrence, was Jack and the late Margaret Apatu’s father.
Timahanga, originally an outstation of Ngamatea, was divided off for Jack and Jenny Roberts in 1972 after they moved there in 1964.
They have handed over the reins of the 10,700 hectare Timahanga to their youngest son Alan, while Renata is managing director of the Ngamatea Farming Company’s 28,000ha.
Pocket presses were commonly used on large, remote stations when the only way out for the wool was on the back of a pack horse.
In the days of the original station shearing 50,000 sheep, there would have been about 1000 horse trips a year to get the wool over the rough Gentle Annie track on horseback and across the Ngaruroro River at Kuripapango.
From there the wool was transferred into conventional wool packs to be taken to Napier by horse wagons and later by traction engine.
Jack says each pocket press bale would have weighed 36-45 kilograms (or 80 to 100 pounds at the time).
‘‘One bale on each side and sometimes one on top was considered a good load for a horse,’’ he says.
There are a few puzzled brows as the men try to remember the different steps to working the press, as well as being mindful of not breaking it.
‘‘Wool presses haven’t really changed that much in 100 years except you don’t need the physical strength you needed in the past,’’ says one spectator.
Gradually the pocket press was filled, pressed, covered and capped and stencilled with Ohauku.
Ohauku is the brand name for the wool from Studholme’s Mangataramea Station and the original name of all the local stations put together.
He says while he didn’t remember any original pocket presses in action, he was thrilled to have a working model on the property.
‘‘I didn’t find it, it found me,’’ Jack says, recalling the restoration work of the late Jim Milligan.
‘‘I knew we had a pocket press at Timahanga at some stage in its history because we picked up one of the handles lying around.
‘‘I thought it was an old plough handle though.
‘‘We also found one of those pull down rods with the teeth lying around the place and we didn’t know what it was from.
‘‘Jim Milligan saw it and knew what it was and asked us if he could borrow it to take a pattern.
‘‘It was a complete surprise when he showed up a month or two later with the pocket press under the cover on his trailer.
‘‘It was Jim who re-timbered it and reassembled it to give us the press we have today.’’
Jack’s granddaughter also found another piece.
‘‘Jean-louise and I were up checking on the water system and she was fossicking around where the old sheep dip was.
‘‘She saw a piece of metal sticking up and dug it out.
‘‘It turned out to be the side piece, where the ratchet goes, of another pocket press.
‘‘We’ve since found other pieces around the place but where we’ve found them doesn’t really relate to where the old 20-stand blade shearing shed was. If anyone has a metal detector, we’d love to borrow it.’’
The press has been sitting in the station’s old cookhouse, where Jack is forming a bit of a museum with pieces gathered from over the farm.
‘‘Ren had the idea to give it a try out and he got some packs and caps made and we gave it a trial run to make sure it would work. And it did.
‘‘The press had a baby… that little bale on top of that standard size bale over there,’’ he says, drawing a laugh from onlookers.
The latest wool pack, pressed with due care for the press, weighed just 23kg or 50 pounds on the old scales that had been put back into the woolshed for the display.
Jack says as far as he knows, they were the original scales used when Fernie Brothers & Roberts came into operation at Timahanga in 1928.
He says in the 53 years since he and Jenny moved to Timahanga, they have only used two Hawke’s Bay shearing contractors and they are Bill Jones and Brendan Mahony.
Similarly, they’ve only worked with three main head rousies – Aunt Aggie, Vicki Jones and Ena Kupa – as well as long serving wool classer Sonya Johansen.
Alan Roberts has carried on the family tradition of corriedale sheep on Timahanga.
Jack and Jenny had originally bought rams from Jenny’s father (John Paton) at Otamauri to help produce an even line of wool.
Rams are now bought mainly from Greg Harris at Mt Adde near Blenheim, says Jack.
Timahanga carries 13,500 ewes and shears 28,000 sheep.
This includes 15,000 lambs in a normal year, producing about 480 bales of wool.
‘‘We’re still working on keeping the ewe flock below 28 microns and the lambs below 24 microns.’’