Hardworking bullock teams were not just a feature of coastal Tararua for Hawke's Bay's Charlie Anderton - they are a proud part of his family history as his father, Arthur, worked with the teams in the early 1900s.
Arthur Anderton was born in 1883 and died in 1955, aged 72, but his son, Charlie, can remember some of those very early days of the bullock teams.
Charlie, 96, who now lives at Sommerset in Greenmeadows, was born in 1920 at Kereru where his father's job was to load the bullock wagons and take the logs to the mill.
"The bullock teams were an important part of my father's life," he said. "Fortunately I've inherited some very precious family photos from those early days in the 1900s and they tell the story of a time not many can remember now.
"Prior to 1912 when my father was single, he was taking timber down to what was then the Pukehou Railway Station, using the bullocks. That was not long after he left school. He then went to Kereru Mill and had two or four bullocks, using them to drag the logs around the stumps of felled trees to the skids. A wire rope hauler would then drag the logs to the mill.