Few people would enjoy shifting furniture, but the Far North Roading crew and others who had the job of moving a giant staircase, carved from a single swamp kauri log, at Awanui yesterday really had their work cut out.
The staircase had long been one of the star attractions at what what used to be the Ancient Kauri Kingdom, and will be again when the revamped Kauri Unearthed opens about this time next year.
The entire complex is undergoing major renovations, the process so far involving the removal of the entire front section of the building, once home to the showroom and café, which are moving back into the original building, formerly the Ancient Kauri Kingdom workshop, and before that the Kaitaia Co-operative Dairy Co's milk powder store.
Alby Hall, who has been there for 26 years, said he helped make the staircase, which he reckoned weighed 16 tonnes. The log it had come from had originally weighed three times that, Alby turning the material that was removed into three or four hundred kauri bowls.
The pushing power to move the staircase was provided by a large digger, which slowly propelled it deeper into the building on steel rollers. The next bit, Alby said, was going to be more challenging, pushing it sideways for a few metres then lifting it on to a new base.
