Kerikeri sawmill runs out of steam

Brothers Dave, left, and Mike Collins with an early 1900s Tangye horizontal steam engine. PHOTO / PETER DE GRAAF -

Red tape and neighbour issues mean the whistle has fallen silent at New Zealand's only steam-powered commercial sawmill. Peter de Graaf writes about the end of an era and the passion that stoked the fire at a unique Kerikeri timber mill.

IT HAS BEEN PART of Kerikeri's soundscape for more than 30 years.

Four times a day a distinctive, drawn-out toot from Kerikeri's steam sawmill signalled every lunch break, smoko and knock-off.

With a sound like an approaching locomotive, it could be heard up and down Kerikeri Inlet and, in the right conditions, as far away as Purerua on the other side of the Bay.

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Image 1 of 14: Kerikeri's steam sawmill was the last steam-powered timber mill in New Zealand and probably the country's last steam-driven industrial plant of any type. PHOTO / PETER DE GRAAF

On December 18, however, the mill's steam whistle sounded for the last time.

The last log at New Zealand's last steam-powered sawmill was sawn the previous Monday, by the same brothers who cut the first log in 1983, and on the Friday its nine staff extinguished the furnace and closed the doors for the last time on a piece of industrial history.

The sawmill was built by brothers Mike, 69, and Dave Collins, 67, who were in their 30s when they hatched their plan for a steam-powered sawmill.

Sawmilling was in their blood - their father owned a mill on the same property - and Mike is, in his brother's words, "a steam nut", so it made sense to bring the two elements together.

Steam also made sense because the waste wood could be used to heat the boiler and generate power, making the mill virtually self-sufficient.

The brothers had little money so set about cobbling together a mill from unwanted and obsolete machinery.

THEIR FIRST MAJOR acquisition, from the now-derelict timber mill in Kaitaia's Pukepoto Rd, was a gang saw (also called a frame saw) for turning logs into rough planks. That determined the design of the rest of the mill.

The boiler came from Mobil Oil in Whangarei; one steam engine came from the sugar refinery in Auckland, while the steam-powered generator came from Tokanui Psychiatric Hospital in the Waikato.

They traded a truck for the engine from an old steam tug called the Otago while the fire bricks for the furnace came from hospitals around the Far North.

The result, then called the Collins Bros Sawmill, was a cross between a working mill and a museum for steam enthusiasts.

The oldest of its five working steam engines, a Tangye horizontal engine, was built in Birmingham around 1903; the newest was built in 1955. Three were in use every day.

"For a mill that's been cobbled together from a whole lot of redundant plant and has kept going all these years, it's a credit to the way things used to be made. It would keep going for many more years if it was viable," Dave says.

AN ECONOMIC downturn in the late 1980s led to Mike returning to orcharding, leaving Dave and his wife Maree to keep the mill running.

By 2007, the couple had had enough and sold the sawmill to Max Birt, one of their best customers and the owner of two other timber mills in Waikato.

Dave remained closely involved, however, dropping in at least a couple of times a week to offer advice or catch up with old mates.

"We were very indebted to Max for taking it on. He made his own mark on it, upgrading the machinery and doubling the output," he says.

Site manager Lyall Pim, who has been associated with the mill on and off for 27 years, admitted to feeling a pang of nostalgia as the last log was sawn. Like the rest of the staff, he's looking for a new job.

A diesel mechanic by trade, he says running a steam-powered sawmill was a huge learning curve.

"The steam side has its ups and downs - you have to get up a bit earlier to fire up the boiler - but it's pretty unique," he says.

The closure is also a blow to dreams of turning the Bay of Islands into a tourists' steam mecca.

With the Bay of Islands Vintage Railway making steady progress towards Opua, it was hoped that visitors would one day be able to catch a steam train in Kawakawa, then travel from Opua to Kerikeri Basin on the steam ferry Minerva, currently undergoing slow restoration in Kerikeri.

The passengers could then have taken a bus to the steam sawmill and Pete's Pioneer Museum in Kerikeri Rd, but both have now closed down.

IRONICALLY, Max Birt says his efforts to make the mill economic by boosting production may have brought about its demise instead.

Only about 20 per cent of the mill's waste wood is needed to fire the boiler; the rest has long been burnt in a pit on site.

As production increased so did the amount of waste being burnt. Following a series of complaints from neighbours about the smoke, in February the Far North District Council - acting on behalf of the Northland Regional Council, which is responsible for air quality - gave the mill until Christmas to install an incinerator or find another way of disposing of the waste.

Max says he tried various methods but none was satisfactory. The mill is too small to make buying an incinerator or a de-barking machine, which would allow him to split the waste into bark and sellable wood chip, economic.

"But I'm not bitter. I can see the neighbours' point. If it was me, I wouldn't want smoke drifting through the trees and stinking up the washing. The council also has a job to do. They have to look after the ratepayers."

Closing the mill has been a tough decision, he says. He employs about 140 staff and it was the first time in more than 40 years he has laid anyone off.

The mill and land would be sold. He hoped someone would be able to reassemble the mill elsewhere, "for future generations to enjoy and to see how things used to work".

It was New Zealand's last commercial steam-driven sawmill and probably the last steam-powered industrial plant of any type in the country, he says.

After the brothers had sawn the last log, Dave said the loss would sink in only once the machines had been shut down for the last time and the noisy mill had fallen silent.

"It's a bit hard to believe. We always thought it would happen one day. But for now the beast is still alive."

Today, however, the beast is still. The fires are out and its whistle no longer marks the passing of the day as it echoes around Kerikeri Inlet.