The southern Kaingaroa Forest, south of the Napier Taupo Highway is an area of extremes with annual snowfall, bitter frosts, blizzards, heavy fog, dangerously cold wind chill and heavy rain as clouds step up off the lake, rutting out the pumice-based roads. Then the summers can be almost desert-like and turn the place into a dust bowl. Sometimes the deep bulldust from ground-up pumice requires four-wheel drive to get moving on the main arterial routes and passing doubles require light vehicles to stop in the ensuing white-out. So, it is a very challenging environment for forestry gear and operators alike.
Hands-on boss
As we drive onto the R.A. Douglas Harvesting skid in Southern Kaingaroa to test the Sumitomo 5040 processor fitted with a Waratah 625C head, crew owner Ross ‘Spud’ Douglas is carrying a spanner and helping an operator and service technician do some maintenance.
“That’s what I really like about Ross, he is a hands-on boss,” says Iron Tester Shaun Field as he parks the Hilux. Shaun worked for Ross about five years ago running an older Sumitomo SH350 felling and processing.
“It was a hot machine that one, I remember sitting in it in my undies and I was still sweating. By the look and sound of this new one they have moved up quite a few levels,” says Shaun.
In the next few minutes Ross is using a rattle gun, socket drive and a sledgehammer. Definitely a hands-on boss: “I’m getting a bit old for this sort of stuff full time. I used to do all the maintenance work. My first job out of school was as a mechanic actually, then when I was 20, I started working in the bush locally between Rotorua and Napier. Did some contract falling and have been on harvesters for about 20 years. I worked for four different crews before going out on my own about 15 years ago. I started out with an older harvester and forwarder doing thinnings in Kaingaroa. I sold a car and ticked up some money on the house to get going. UDC Finance love me mate.”
He goes on: “You can’t do this job with rubbish gear. As well as the new Sumitomo 5040 we bought three months ago, we have a fairly new 800 hours Yuchai grapple digger… reliable as. It’s got all the good stuff… Cummins engine, KY pumps, quite an aggressive machine, and there’s a month old Tigercat 630 skidder… it’s going beautifully, much bigger grapple than previously, really have to watch the tyres don’t get bit by that grapple though – at $10k a tyre we treat them pretty carefully.
“That skidder has 22 lights on it. I often start at 3 or 4 in the morning on that thing and I can tell you the lights are mean. I often can’t sleep so I just come out here and get stuck into skidder work or processing… whatever needs doing really to catch up or keep ahead. Might go home at 9 o’clock too. That skidder is easy...
