Photographic examples of genuine log shoots in New Zealand are difficult to locate but historian Ron Cooke of Taumarunui found two images of the same shoot that worked at Kakahi in the early 1900s during the construction of the Main Trunk Railway...

While the railway was being pushed through the King Country from the turning of the first sod at Puniu in 1885, it was not until around 1904 that sawmill contractors were starting to cut timber for sleepers at Kakahi. 

The Public Works Department (PWD) was responsible overall for constructing the railway for the Government and had decided that Kakahi would be an ideal site to establish a sawmill to cut and supply timber for bridges, culverts, station buildings, sleepers and other necessary requirements. 

A progress report of the Main Trunk in 1904 stated that “a sawmill is being arranged for at Kakahi to cut sleepers and other necessary timber” followed in 1905 by another report that said, “a Public Works sawmill has been started at Kakahi”.

The chimneys of two stationary steam engines can be seen in the photo on page 43. The one on the right looks to be driving a vertical breaking down saw while on the left a single saw is being driven. Another report claimed about 9000 to 10,000 superficial feet per day would be produced after all the machinery was installed. 

Prior to this, getting the logs to the mill would have initially involved timber jacks, bullock teams and skidding roads to assist delivery. Depending on the steepness of the terrain it would have been necessary to occasionally construct a “log shoot” to speed up the process. 

This fact has been confirmed in a booklet The Kakahi Sawmills first published in 1978 by The Lodestar Press when the tramway to the bush was being described. Basically, the tram ran from State Sawmill No 1 located in the railway yard along the present Waitea Road out to SH4. 

The narrative had mentioned a “runaway siding” that was provided to catch and stop a runaway train out of control on the steep descent into the mill yard when these vital words were recorded.

“Further up the hill is an old Public Works timber shoot, long since fallen into decay. This was in use in the very early days of the mill when it was in the hands of the PWD and before the tramline up the hill was in existence.” 

The quote continues: “The logs were dragged by bullocks to the top of the ’shoot’ then shot down it. Arriving at the bottom they were loaded on to trucks and hauled along the tramline to the mill.” 

Remains of the tramline formation and cutting can still be seen and, amazingly, the site of the original log chute remains largely untouched, apart from long grass, blackberry, a few pungas and a stormwater run-off. While the area is on private property there’s probably a few secrets still hidden that will be protected by the...