TALL TIMBER
Neville Wiseman spent much of his early working life at the wheel of ex-army trucks, carting native logs to mills in the North Island before graduating onto newer, civilian models. Now well into retirement, he still retains his licence…just in case.
NEVILLE WISEMAN WAS BORN IN Frankton Junction in 1931 and is a slightly built 87-year-old today, but his memory is still as sharp as a tack.
In spite of his stature, Neville had a very interesting career driving log trucks in the North Island… which stretched back to the native logging days.
His first involvement with the timber industry began at Mamaku in the post-war years. His sister, Pearl, and her husband, Alf, lived there and Alf was the head yardman at
Steele’s mill. Neville and his wife, Aileen, had been in the habit of making frequent trips to Mamaku to visit them.
During these trips, Neville got to know many of the mill workers and the manager, and when he was offered a job in the mill and a house, they decided to move to Mamaku.
The job Neville started on was as a “Goosie” on the Goose saw, which was also known as a docking saw. The job entailed cutting sawn timber from the breast bench to the lengths required and classing it. This was his introduction to handling timber and eventually bush work and logging.
Then came the offer of a mill job and house at Minginui for Minginui Sawmills, which entailed another move.
The house supplied was a great improvement on the previous one and the job was on the breaking down saw in a much more modern mill than Steele’s.
Neville got friendly with the truck driver who had the contract to cart sawn timber, using a new Commer truck. This cartage was
from the mill at Minginui to the railhead at Rotorua.
It was not long before Neville was offered some driving work in his spare time. Sometimes this was a trip carting sawn timber to the Penrose Timber Company in Auckland, a twelve-hour return journey.
Life in Minginui was great and the mill work and part-time driving most enjoyable. At this stage the person for whom he was driving wanted to enlarge his business and asked Neville to come in with him, form a partnership and purchase two more trucks.
After considerable thought, a new company was formed and Neville took over the operation of the two new trucks. The new contract they got was to cart sawn timber from Wilsons Mill at Te-Whaiti to the Rotorua railhead.
The Wisemans shifted to Te-Whaiti to be closer to the sawmill and Aileen got a job as the Post Mistress in the local store.
This new contact worked out well but was hard work as all the sawn timber had to be
loaded and unloaded by hand. Sometimes Neville and Aileen would go to the mill on the Sunday afternoon and load the truck ready for an early start on Monday. By doing this, two trips could be managed on the Monday to Rotorua.
The hard, manual loading situation was to improve later when the railway obtained its first forklift but in the meantime, all loading and unloading was done by the couple.
Shortly after, Ray Carter got in touch with Neville, as he had just won the contract to cart two loads a day from Kinleith to Kawerau and Neville was asked to drive a new International truck for him. This International proved to be a real workhorse and was a really reliable truck. Ray’s purchase of a Gerlinger forklift was a great help with loading and unloading, making the job too tempting to resist.
Life took another turn when Neville’s mother asked if they would be interested in helping with a bush contract she and his father had taken over with their partner Ron that hadn’t been going well. With no previous experience in bush work they were in serious trouble, finding it difficult to get enough logs out of the bush for the local mill. They managed to get through this period only because of a large stockpile of logs at the mill. When this began to dwindle away, the mill was unable to cut the daily amount it was capable of.
The advice of their bushmen, with their lifetime experience of working in the forest, was overlooked. And their limited mechanical experience also meant that a mechanic needed to be called out every time there was a breakdown, which happened far too often, adding to costs.
When Ron and his wife threw in the towel to return to Hamilton, Neville and Aileen decided to move from Te-Whaiti to Mokai to help his parents get the bush contract back on track.
Neville took over an ex-army GMC logging truck. This was originally fitted with a canvas cab roof, which was replaced with a wooden cab, sporting a flat windscreen and no side windows. But it was very reliable mechanically.
Like all GMC trucks it was almost unstoppable in the mud and rough going with its six-wheel-drive. It was the perfect truck for the bush terrain. The ground around Western Bay, Tihoi and Mokai is mainly Tarawera ash, but conditions quickly turned to heavy mud once the surface was disturbed by machinery.
An International 18 bulldozer working in the bush was used to help load the GMC, with its blade pushing the logs off the raised skids. Together, they improved turn-around times immensely.
Neville also discovered another reason why so few truck loads were coming out of the bush. Ron, who drove the previous truck, would leave home between 8.00-8.30 each morning, arrive at the skids and wait until the bulldozer had pulled the first load of logs out and could then load the truck. This could be mid-morning or even later, followed by a leisurely drive back to the mill and home for lunch at 12 to 12-30pm each day. After a leisurely lunch he would repeat the process, arriving at the bush about 2pm and load for the return trip around 4.30 or 5pm. As the cartage distance was only a mere 7km this was a pathetic effort and it was little wonder the mill had soon used up the large stockpile it had at the start of the contract and was running out of logs.
To make the situation worse, Bob, the bulldozer operator was inexperienced and hardly a day went by without either the tracks
slipping off, wire strops breaking or cables having the eyes pulled out.
This all meant downtime for the bushmen, who had to stop felling when the ground became littered with wood waiting to be pulled to the skids.
Some immediate changes were made. Bob was taken off the bulldozer and replaced by one 0f the bushmen, another experienced bushman was given the job of breaker-out and Neville took over the truck driving.
A suitable winch came up for sale and was installed by the skids and used to load the truck, thus freeing up the bulldozer from this job. A later model GMC truck was purchased and a safety frame fitted behind the cab, allowing the trailer to be piggy-backed instead of having to drag it behind the truck.
It was a simple task to unload the trailer at the skids, using the bulldozer winch in conjunction with a block suspended from a handy tree.
The trailer poles were wooden, made from nice straight Rewarewa or Honeysuckle and they always kept a spare one back at the mill. Very occasionally one would be broken when the bulldozer was pushing on the back of the pole to get the truck away from the skids, especially if the mud was halfway up the wheels.
Some contractors had changed over to steel poles, which had just become available. These steel poles had advantages but if they got bent it was a major job to straighten them and they were quite expensive. At least Neville could fit a new goose neck to a wooden pole in about an hour and that’s why he stuck with them.
After some major work on the rollers and grousers of the bulldozer, production began to increase. Neville was carting four or five loads a day and two on Saturdays and they started to build up a good stock-pile at the mill.
With the later model truck, he could also cart logs to other mills in Taupo, Cambridge, Taumarunui, Te Poi and also cart peeler logs to Auckland.
Another logging contractor at Mokai was Sam Andrews. Sam carted logs to several central North Island mills and had a licence to
cart peeler logs to Auckland. Every now and then, when Neville had caught up with the bushmen’s work and the mill had sufficient logs to carry on with, he would cart a load of peeler logs to Auckland for Sam.
These peeler logs were taken to Henderson and Pollard’s mill where they were made into first-grade native plywood for interior building projects and furniture. These were long, slow trips, leaving Mokai at about 1.30am to arrive in Auckland about 6.30am to unload and then return to Mokai and take on another load of logs.
Back then, there was no such thing as a driver’s log book or restrictions on driving hours, and the trucks used were very slow when loaded and had limited horsepower – a GMC, for example, barely produced 100 horsepower and had a five-speed gearbox. Today’s trucks can have 650 horsepower-plus and 18 gears.
Around this time, Sam purchased a nearnew Mercedes truck, which was used on the Auckland run, as it was faster and more economical. Peeler logs were in great demand as the native timber industry started to wind
down and the pine forests came on line.
At this time, there was a restriction on how far a truck could carry a load to protect the railway’s monopoly on distance. A licence, however, was granted to cart a limited number of peeler logs to Auckland, because the railways had only a few spare wagons for this type of load, most being reserved for the log shuttle between Murupara, Kawerau and the Mount.
One of the forestry blocks Neville carted from, not far from the Mokai village, was the Te-Tomo block. About half-way up to the skids was an extremely steep winding hill, which was very narrow and pure clay. Neville recalls that “you always had to stop the loaded truck right on the brow, engage low gear, and slowly ease over the top using the trailer brakes and engine to hold the truck as you crept down”. Even while doing this, a loaded truck could still slide several feet before regaining traction.
One particular morning after loading a large Matai of a long length, which was to be carted to Henderson and Pollard, Neville got to the top of the hill and slowly started the descent and all was going well until a sharp right-hand corner about half-way down. After swinging wide to allow for the long log, things went badly wrong. A combination of the enormous weight, the steepness of the hill and the sharp bend caused the laden truck to begin to slide forward off the road and into the water table. The truck slid about twelve feet before coming to a sudden halt. The violent stop, plus a liberal coating of mud on the log caused the load to keep coming and squash the back of the cab.
Luckily Neville wasn’t hurt and after the bulldozer had pulled the log off, Taupo and the panel beaters was the next stop. Once repaired, a safety frame was fitted behind the cab.
The Forest Service used to go through the bush marking all the peeler logs that were destined for Auckland. When working in the Rimu Block at Mokai there was a gully full of the ugliest Rimu trees Neville had ever come across. Many of them had large limbs growing off each side. Others had split many years ago and were just large deformed trees.
Felling these trees was not the easiest of jobs, as they were not only enormous but access to them was difficult, owing to the steep gully and heavy undergrowth. After these trees were felled, winched out to the road and dragged to the skids and crosscut into log lengths, they still had large enormous limbs attached. These limbs were often cut off six feet from the trunk leaving large fins sticking out which made loading them onto the truck difficult.
On one occasion, says Neville, “we were loading a particularly enormous ugly Rimu and we had it right on the point of balance on the top of the skids. I signalled the bulldozer to slowly slide the log on. There was so much weight in this one log that although the bulldozer had ample power, it was hard to regulate as it only needed to be moved a couple of inches at a time to keep it straight”.
The bulldozer driver tried a couple of times without success, so increased power slightly and gave it a nudge. The huge Rimu seemed to sit on the point of balance for some time before it slowly rolled off the skids onto the truck and trailer. As the enormous weight hit the logging truck, the unit lurched downwards causing the log with its large ugly limb to carry on with its rolling action right over the chocks onto the ground. The chocks were about twelve inches high but did little to slow down the log which ended up hitting the ground and rolling back against the truck and trailer unit.
On another occasion, when Neville was carting out of the Te-Tomo block, a single drive logging truck arrived from Taupo to pick up a load of Matai. The truck owners had arranged to cart five loads of Matai a day to fill a special order.
“They had apparently not heard about this hill of ours or I think they would have
stayed in Taupo,” says Neville.
“I was negotiating this hill four or five times a day and always treated it with the utmost respect. It was a case of stopping at the top, engaging low gear, then slowly winding your way down using motor and trailer brakes, which were used separately by a lever on the dash and only dabbing lightly on the truck brakes.”
This particular block was extremely wet and muddy and surrounded by mist and fog most days, making working conditions uncomfortable and cold.
Neville continues: “One morning I had completed an early trip to Taupo sawmills with logs I had loaded the night before and was now headed up to the skids for a load for the local Mokai mill. When I reached the notorious hill I found the Taupo truck parked up. The driver had tried several times to climb the hill but only having a single drive truck had little or no chance. I had always thought that these single drive trucks quite inadequate for anywhere but on tar sealed roads. Even piggy backing his tandem axle trailer on the truck he was always going to struggle.
“With the GMC having ten-wheel-drive it was quite easy for me to hook him on and drag him to the top. When we reached the skids, we lifted his trailer off with the bulldozer and once again he had no traction and we had to drag him to the skids with the bulldozer.
“We had two Matai logs sitting on the skids for him and he was soon loaded and on his way. When I was loaded and on the way out, upon reaching the top of the hill I could see him about half-way down with his trailer at almost right angles to his truck.
“He had got too far over with his truck’s front wheels on the sharp right-hand bend and ended up in the water table with little chance of recovery, as every time he tried he slid a little further off the track.
“By the time I had parked my truck and walked down, he had undone his chains, removed the chocks and using a timber jack, sent one of the logs crashing onto the roadside. He then used the timber jack to centre the remaining log on his unit. With much less weight he was able to re-position the truck and drive out. I often wondered what happened when he arrived back at Taupo with half his load but the remainder of the contract was cancelled.
“As the local mill was well stocked with logs, I took on a contract to cart some logs for Taupo Sawmills from Hatepe about thirty miles south from Taupo. I left Taupo about 5am so I could be at the skids about 6.30 and ready to load when the bushmen arrived.
“I saw logs sitting on the skids and was preparing to load but was told that the permanent driver always insisted on having the first load. I was still waiting at 8.00am for him to arrive. This situation went on for the next three days and when I arrived at the mill just after lunch and informed the mill manager what was going on he assured me that things would change tomorrow and they did. I got out to the bush skids to find a threelog load waiting for me.”
Road trips could be just as challenging as driving bush roads and Neville recalls a trip to the Waikato that nearly ended in disaster.
“I was cruising down a long winding hill and eased the brakes on and noticed a wheel go rolling past me on the left-hand driver’s side,” he says.
“I quickly reached for the trailer brake lever when a second wheel also went sailing past. I pulled up as quickly as I could, and upon inspection found the wheel nuts on the tandem trailer axle had sheared off and allowed the axle to drop down releasing the two wheels.”
Several hours delay and a new hub later and Neville was on his way again. In those days GMC parts were very easy to get and as the trailer axles were GMC there was never any holdup for repairs.
Neville also recalls when he was carting to the Rotorua rail head there was an agreement with NZR that if they couldn’t supply the truck driver with a wagon “they would sign your docket, which meant you were authorised to drive straight though to Auckland. This gave us a big lift to our income.”
During this one period, there were no wagons for a few days and Neville says: “I was trying to do as many trips as I could.The return trip to Auckland and back was about ten hours or so without much sleep and two or three trips to Auckland in a row was very tiring.”
The trucks during this period were notorious for being hot as hell in summer and freezing cold in winter. None were fitted with heaters for winter, and motor heat added to the summer temperatures.
Many of the Auckland trips from both TeWhaiti and Mokai through heavy frosts and sometimes snow were extremely cold trips.
“I remember one trip from Minginui as I headed across the Kaingaroa plains it began to snow quite steadily and both sides of the road were white with frost,” says Neville, adding that on reaching Huntly about 3.30 in the morning, he pulled over to grab a couple of hours sleep on the side of the road in near freezing temperatures. Very different from today’s luxurious cabs.
As the milling of native timber was rapidly being phased out Neville travelled extensively to cart the remaining supplies, hauling logs from many different areas as all the timber mills were calling out for logs from anywhere they could get them. By contrast, carting pine was a less adventurous undertaking.
Neville eventually called a halt to his log transporting days in the early 1980s, although he did the odd native logging job after that. He then hauled frozen goods between Hamilton, Dargaville, Whangarei and Moerewa, before switching to deliver aggregate and sand around the eastern Bay of Plenty.
Times have most definitely changed, but Neville says: “I still have a certain amount of pride in the fact that I still hold my class five licence and still love to hear the sound of a fully laden truck as it climbs a hill, or the sound of a truck as it winds its way down the other side, holding its position with air brakes or its retarder. I know there is a driver there fully concentrating on his or her driving.”
Information for this article was extracted from an unpublished manuscript titled “CHANGING GEARS” the life story of an ordinary truck driver spent behind the wheel 1950 to until today, by Neville Wiseman.
NZL