Scows in the Northern Coal Trade

SCOWS IN THE NORTHERN COAL TRADE

Reproduction of an unattributed article appearing on the website – http://boatdesign.net/forums/sailboats/new-zealand-scow

Coal was first mined in Kawakawa River from 1867 and shipped out of ‘The Landing’ at Taumarere on the Kawakawa River, and then barged about two miles down to the ‘Loading Ground’ where larger vessels anchored. These ships included the coastal steamers and ships of the new Union Steamship Co. Larger cutter and schooners carried much directly to Auckland to the yards of the Bay of Islands Coal Co. at Britomart Point.

At its peak this mine produced about 42,500 tons per year but by 1884 on, strikes by the miners and flooding of the shafts led to the close of the mine by 1893. In all, this field produced in excess of 870,000 tons. From the underground mine, the coal was shovelled direct into skips, wooden tubs sitting on a timer frame on railway wheels. The train, originally horse-drawn, consisted of about six or eight tubs (3-4 tons) and towed directly to Taumarere landing where a derrick dumped them either onto flat barges or directly into the smaller vessels. Later a small steam loco was purchased and trains went up to 20 tons (40 skips).

When I was a boy growing up in Kawakawa a local contractor, Ray Wilson, had special license and petrol ration (during WWII) to mine coal from this field to supply the Bay of Islands hospital and other domestic uses. This from surface deposits which he dug and loaded by hand into an old Ford V8 truck about 1936 vintage. I recall him using a horse team dragging a scoop to clear the earth overburden. Ads scows were first built from 1873, ‘Lake Erie’ by Meiklejohn, they must have been used in this trade along with other trading vessels. At the time of this mine closing thee had been about 33 scows launched.

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With the closing down of Kawakawa much of the railway and other machinery was shipped to Kiripaka (in the upper most reaches of the Ngunguru River) by scow. This field had been opened up in 1892 after more than six years of negotiation with the ‘native’ land owners and an advance royalty of 6 pence per ton for the first 20,000 tons paid. Many of the miners followed too and a settlement soon grew up here which lasted about twenty years.

The first mine opened up was the ‘Ngunguru’ about 250 feet above the river level on the south side of the upper Ngunguru river where it narrows and becomes part of the Kiripaka stream. This is where 50 ton capacity double wooden hopper was constructed to load vessels. The first load of coal out was taken up the cutter ‘Wakati’ towed by the steam tug ‘Miranda’. Mines worked were the ’Ngunguru’, ‘Panipo 1& 2’ and later ‘Hora Hora’. This mine was located a few miles south and was serviced by an aerial ropeway to the hoppers. The output from the mine in six year was greater than the original three mines before closing down in 1921. Although close to one million tons came across the Ngunguru bar and the greater part of it on back of scows.

Three steam tugs were employed here – ‘Tui’, ‘Lena’ and ‘Miranda’ along with several barges. When the bigger scows had exhausted the loading bins, they were towed down to Ngungurur and topped off from the barges while at anchor. Some smaller scows, 40 or 50 tons, would have gone north to places like Kaeo and Maunganui dairy companies while bigger scows, ‘Korora’ and the like went down to Gisborne. Continuous traffic ran to Coromandel, Thames and Paeroa to feed the gold mines and heavy industries associated with them. Large tonnages also went down to Opotiki and Taneatua

to the dairy companies there. In Auckland there was the growth on the North Shore with hospitals, steam tramways, Devonport Gas Co., Devonport steam buses, Lake Pupuke pumping station, and Chelsea sugar refinery. Devonport Ferries had a voracious appetite too and for a while used ‘Haere’ as a coaling hulk feeding the ferries. There was continuous cross harbour traffic with coal from the Waikato fields which arrived by rail and also the Kings Wharf power station to say nothing of the colliers from Westport supplying Auckland Gas Co.

With the decline of mining at Kiripaka, so the government increased efforts at Hikurangi which was by then connected directly with Opua which became a major coaling port for vessels leaving New Zealand. The Whangarei basin could be accessed by the ‘Gull Roost’, a swing bridge crossing the upper harbour at Kioreroa. This allowed the scows to and others to be loaded directly by steam cranes which picked up the body of the railway truck and tip it directly into the hold or onto the deck. Thus a 300 ton load was handled in about 30 minutes.

It was around this time of the decline in small scow coal traffic (1900-1910) that re-enforced concrete structures began to appear.

Auckland City Council had used beach shingle for many years in footpaths and drainage works but more was being applied in buildings. One of the more notable structures being the Grafton Gully Bridge. At the time it was the largest single span arch structure in the world. Every yard of that came off scows. Auckland Harbour Board and others used it to deck their wharves and more and more complete wharf structures. I think it was also when the smaller scows became easier to acquire and even build. They were virtually day boats although working the tide and carried a smaller crew – two men and a boy or even a skipper and a boy, where the bigger ones carried up to six men.

Scows were the workhorses and dumptrucks of the northern coastline. Cargoes were anything and everything from pigs, cows, cattle, and sheep to coal, shingle, fence posts and groceries, bonded stores for hotels.

My grandfather once owned what is now the greater part of Ngunguru, and my father grew up there. He related to me a similar story as told by Phil Eady of watching a scow flying up the coast and making it into Ngunguru in a shower of spray and spume. Of seeing the three masted ‘Zingara’ entering and rounding up virtually under his feet at the Kauri Timber Co. mill all with no fuss or bother, no shouting, the rattle of the anchor pawls, a short chain to check her way, within minutes ready to start loading another cargo of sawn timber for Australia.

There was a grand two story hotel in Ngunguru which had a front veranda jutting well out over the high tide line against which a small hold scow would lay to discharge supplies.  I like to think this may have been ‘Clenrae’ if for no other reason than why else would you have a hold you could lock up when carrying a cargo of hard liquor and fancy foodstuffs for a hotel and general store. Ngunguru was not connected by road to anywhere until an economic downturn in the 1920s when the mines closed. About the time the road went through to Kiripaka was when the hotel suffered a major fire and so was dismantled, the better timber used to construct a couple of small cottages.

After that the only regular export from the area was cattle by the Biddick scows and fine high grade kaolin clay from Hora Hora which had been discovered when excavating for the coal mine. This continued until the 1930s.