Workers scratching their heads over reluctant digger

Two cranes sitting on a specially built river road try to lift the 50-tonne digger from the Kawarau River. Picture / Otago Daily Times

The saga of the 50-tonne digger stuck in the Kawarau River continued yesterday, with more questions than answers for a team of employees faced with removing it.

The manager of Steve Rout Contracting, Stacey Rout, said two cranes eventually managed to lift the company-owned digger on to some "hard stand ground" at 1.30am yesterday, but it was still sitting in about half a metre of water.

Although it was good news to have removed it that far, the problem-solving had only just begun, Mr Rout said.

Police want to speak to anyone with information on who moved the digger from its park below the Lower Shotover Bridge between 4pm on Sunday and 7am Monday and dumped it in the river.

Yesterday afternoon, Mr Rout was organising "some fairly sturdy machinery" in an attempt to drag the digger about 20m to dry land.

"Then somehow we've got to get it out. We'll probably have to drag it with some sort of high acceleration hydraulic pump to work over about 800m of road."

Dragging it may not seem to be a huge problem, but the "road" had been torn up by the excavators and cranes used in the salvage mission and had left it resembling off-road four-wheel-drive territory. There was also a section of river crossing to contend with.

Once it had been dragged 800m to a farmer's paddock, Mr Rout then had to work out how to load it on to a transporter to take it away.

Finally the company would have to restore the road and temporary road set up in the river back to as close to its natural state as possible.

Detective Sergeant Grahame Bartlett of Queenstown said police were continuing their inquiries and the culprit would likely face a prison term.

"I think we'll be looking at an unlawful taking of a motor vehicle and a serious criminal damage charge."

Police were disappointed at the lack of information from the public.

- OTAGO DAILY TIMES