Ross Lockyer recounts more of his life and adventures in the forestry and logging industries in New Zealand and the jungles of South-East Asia and the Pacific, this time moving into the King Country with an excerpt from his book An Accidental Bushman.
It was the end of our second year as Forest Ranger Trainees and the end of our year on the West Coast. We were all a bit overcome with nostalgia about leaving Reefton, as we’d had a great year there. I loved the West Coast, the bush, the mountains, the hunting, the old mines, the miners, and – most of all – the West Coasters themselves. West Coasters are a different breed, and the West Coast is like a different country to the rest of New Zealand. I fell in love with “The Coast” in 1963, and I vowed that I would return whenever I got the chance.
The Trainee Rangers left Reefton in December of that year, heading for our homes and families all over the country for Christmas. We planned to meet up again in Rotorua in February 1964, after a few weeks of timber cruising and forest surveying in various native forests around the country.
Those with vehicles headed off, and the remainder were transported in the forestry gang bus to railway stations or bus depots from where they would wend their way home. I had my Ford Model A coupe, and Jack had his AJS motorbike, and we were booked on the Aramoana Inter-Island Ferry for Wellington.
Jack couldn’t carry much gear on his motorbike, so the excess was loaded into and onto the Model A. Standing in the Ranger School car park just prior to our departure for Picton, both vehicles were loaded to the max. Jack’s backpack was strapped to his pillion seat, and a bag was tied to the mudguard of his bike. The interior and dickey seat of the Model A were stuffed to overflowing with all the rest of our gear. Some suitcases belonging to a couple of the other guys who had motorbikes were tied to the carrier. Mine and Jack’s rifles stuck up out of the dickey seat. Amongst all that, somehow, we managed to cram in bits of wood that we had collected and who knows what else. We couldn’t have squeezed another thing in by the time we drove off in convoy, heading for Picton and the Interisland Ferry.
It was Christmas 1963, and it was good to be home after a year away, and to catch up on all the family news. Mum and Dad had arranged for the whole family to use their friend’s bach at Onaero Beach for a couple of weeks, right after Christmas. Onaero Beach is on the Onaero River mouth between Waitara and Urenui on the main road north of New Plymouth, and there was a row of old traditional kiwi baches along the south bank of the river a couple of hundred yards upstream from the beach....
