Building the Tangihua Lions Lodge

By Bob Sheppard edited by Tina Millar (nee Sheppard)

Editor’s Note

The details recorded in this document are compiled from audio recordings taken during the slide presentation that Bob gave at the Tangihua Lodge 25th Anniversary Celebration in March 2013, and from interviews recorded subsequently over the following three evenings.

I have tried to keep the text as true to the recordings as possible, so that those who know Bob will recognize his voice in these pages.

The pictures were originally taken as slides by Bob, throughout the project.

Since this information was recorded, the tracks have been widened and extended; and the pest eradication project has begun. Volunteers have continued to spend many hours, over the years, maintaining the buildings, facilities and tracks; and upgrading the confidence course as OSH regulations require. Many more volunteers from the community are involved in the pest eradication project. The ongoing success of the Tangihua Lions Lodge will likely always require volunteers. I hope that there will always be people willing and able to continue this legacy.

This record is being published in time for the 30th Anniversary in February 2018. It is simply a record of what happened. However, I also hope to honour the men and their families – a bunch of ordinary farmers and an electrician (and the volunteers they organized) – who accomplished this amazing feat for the “Youth of Northland.”

Summary of Interesting Facts

7000 voluntary hours were put into this project. Consider a 40hr week and how many 40hr weeks make up 7000 voluntary hours.

This outdoor education project idea was initiated by the late Bruce Wellwood via the Lions Club, about 40 years ago in approximately 1981. (He first came up with the idea in 1977.)

The project took three years of research followed by three years of practical work. The research started in 1982. The practical work started in 1985. It was officially opened on the 13th Feb 1988.

It was built by the Mid-Western Lions Club who were mostly farmers. (The Government of the day – some of you older ones will remember Roger Douglas and his hard budget – well, all the farmers put their cheque books away and they came up here and worked on this. It was a great project!

Before starting, there was no road access to the forest. It was completely surrounded by farmland. There is now a road, the lodge buildings, confidence course, and Burma Trail. There are kilometres of walking tracks including to the translator, a grove of large kauri trees, and an old kauri dam site.

The Tangihua Lions Lodge was named by the late Bruce Rix after the project was well along.

It was transferred to a Trust in 1988, debt free.

Planning the Building of the Tangihua Lodge

Our Mid-Western Lions Club was formed in 1980. There were 30 members; most were farmers. This would form the team who built the lodge.

This outdoor education project idea was initiated by the late Bruce Wellwood, about 40 years ago in approximately 1981. The reason he suggested it was because there was only one bush camp (outdoor education centre) for school children in Northland; and that was Lonsdale Park, between Kerikeri and Kaeo. Lonsdale Park is on 6 1⁄2 hectares (17 acres) of land. The Tangihua Forest covers 3600 hectares (just under 7500 acres)

Bruce had seen what that bunch of men in the Mid-Western Lions could do. With the group of skills they had, it dawned on him that, “We could probably do something.”

Some of the local schools had been camping alongside the Tangihua bush for outdoor education camps but we thought it would be better to have a proper campsite. Of course, the project was much bigger than we thought. If we’d known what we would end up with, we might have been a bit apprehensive. But we just did it one step at a time.

In 1982 we started to do all the investigating. For three years we did nothing but explore ideas. If we’d rushed in straight away, we wouldn’t have done as good a job. That research was well worth it.

We didn’t expect to get the power in or the phone in. We went to schools and outdoor education people to ask for ideas. There were all sorts of ideas. Some said, “Don’t build a motel in the bush.” Others said, “Make it a high standard and you’ll get a better occupancy rate.” For three years we just researched all these things.

Raising the money

We had to raise $255,000. Now that was a huge amount for any organization at that time. It was the biggest project undertaken by a Lion’s Club in the Southern Hemisphere at that stage. When it was finished, it was valued at $650,000, a huge sum of money in the 1980’s.

Our theme at the time was “For the Youth of Northland” (Northland meaning from the Auckland Harbour Bridge, northward) – that’s what we sold the project on. That’s what we used when we went to businesses to get money from here, there, and everywhere.

To raise money we did all sorts of things. Some of the ways of raising money that we did then, we wouldn’t do now – like filling bags with sheep manure and selling them door-to-door around town (Whangarei). Another way of raising money was trimming poplar poles and selling them to farmers. (The government was subsidizing farmers to grow poplar trees where there were rows of underground holes to stop the land erosion.)

We had a scrap metal drive. That was an interesting exercise. There’d never been a scrap metal drive of any sort around the district. People with trucks would go around the district and collect up all sorts of stuff – old horse gear, everything – it’s all steel. One thing we got was a bulldozer. The tracks weren’t on it but the rest of it was there. To collect the bulldozer, they got two front-end loaders (one on either side) and lifted it up. Then they backed a truck underneath.

From time to time we had Open Days. We’d invite other Lions Clubs to come along to see what we were doing and ask them to make donations. There’s a list of the donations from the Lions Clubs on one of the walls in the Lodge building.

The firms in town were very good. Benchmark gave us all the stuff we wanted at cost. They made no profit at all. They started off saying, “Oh well, we can give you a good deal

At one stage early on we ran out of money. So five or six of us (I don’t remember exactly how many) went to the bank manager. We all signed our lives away to guarantee the loan. This is what we are doing in the bank manager’s office.

We had a committee member of the World Lions Organization visit us when we were lining the Lodge, and he was as enthusiastic as anything when he saw the project. He said, “Oh, how are you off financially?” We said, “Oh, we still owe about $30 000.” He said, “Peanuts!” He said, “You want to apply to the Lions Club International Fund,” (which is a world-wide organization for emergencies mainly, but we could apply). He said, “Apply for $50 000.” Anyway, we got $50 000 but when we changed it to New Zealand currency it was $72 000! So it paid the debts for that first stage, and we were also able to build that second small building to the closed-in stage.

It was transferred to a Trust in 1988, debt free.

We finally we started the practical work in 1985

The opening date of this building is 1988. It was three years of practical work once we started.

We had a hard core of 23 people that did a lot of the work up there. Hugh McLennan was the only tradesman we had there. He was an electrician. Hugh Tennent helped with bulldozing and those sorts of things, and sighting in the tracks.

There was a committee of six of us that did spend a lot of time working up there and doing the research: Jim Lovegrove was the chairman, the two Hughs (that’s Hugh Tennent and Hugh McLennan) plus Bruce Rix, and Alec Gunson when he came along, (he joined Lions probably a year after we’d started the project), and myself.

I was looking up a few records not very long ago and some of our meetings went until after midnight! We would each investigate things and then come back and report what we’d found. It took a while to go through that.

Access to the Tangihua ranges

There is was no public access to the Tangihua ranges.

Previously, all access was by foot; you couldn’t get in any other way. There was farmland right around the whole block of bush. We had to find a friendly farmer who was willing to allow us to build a road across his property.

Fortunately, Jim Harris was there. I’d known him when he was the senior adviser for our Young Farmers Club up in Okaihau. After leaving Okaihau, he moved down to Wellsford somewhere and was farming down there for quite a long time. I met him once or twice, just by chance. Then he bought over at Tangihua.

When he was approached about providing access, he was obliging. Of course, our theme was, ‘For the Youth of Northland’. He was always very good with young people.

Preparing the Road

Though you wouldn’t know it this area had once been broken-in to farmland but had reverted back into native bush. It was reverting back (into native bush) before the Second World War.

The most open part of the bush and is where the road is now. It was the original bullock track when they took the kauri out. It was probably made in the 1880’s.

The Lions Club built a road that was 11⁄2 miles (nearly 3km) long and then we left it for 10 months to consolidate before we brought all those heavy truckloads in. After the road had consolidated, we brought the buildings in.

The road was completely built with farm machinery; there were no big roading contractors. We dragged everything out onto the farmland and put it into three heaps:

• Ponga logs were sold in Whangarei for garden-surrounds.
• Tea tree was sold for firewood.
• The rest of it was stacked into a huge heap which was burnt. We re-grassed the burnt area afterwards.

Metal for the road

We not only formed that road right in, nearly 3km, we had to metal it. There was a quarry right beside where we needed to build the road. Jim had said, “Yeah, sure, take the metal out of there!”

Once we’d put the road in, Maurice said, “Well, we need a bulldozer with big rippers to rip this metal out of the quarry, there.” Being a carrier/contractor, he knew a lot of people. He went along to this guy who owned a big bulldozer and said, “Oh we need your bulldozer for this big project we are doing. Can you send it out (with a driver) – you’re not going to get paid!” And he did it. He ripped a lot of metal out; and we spread it out with our small bulldozers. Then we needed some more so he asked again. (I think it was somebody else he asked the second time but it was the same deal.) We took out 3500m3 to metal the road.

Farmers’ machinery was used mostly. A lot of those farm trucks could not trail the metal like you see them trail today. They actually had to dump it in heaps; and then we spread it out with little bulldozers. We had trucks belonging to Alec Gunson, Ian Ballentine, Mark Lovegrove, and Bruce Wellwood. None of those farm trucks could trail the metal. Any slight undulation on the ground would have caused the truck to flip over on its side. So they just had to dump it in a heap. Hugh Tennent and I both had little bulldozers and we spread it out.

Building the lodge

Preparing the site

Clearing the site

The site had to be cleared as it was covered in regenerating forest. The site was levelled and a retaining wall put in. The retaining wall was built on two sides of the building site. That involved a few days work for quite a lot of guys.

The Buildings – purchasing them and getting them into the bush

When we started off, it just so happened that the big Marsden Point Oil Refinery Expansion Project was coming to an end. They had a work-force of 4000 people out there so they had to have a lot of
accommodation. The Lodge building was a recreation building alongside their mess hall in Rewarewa Road, Whangarei.

We went to other Lions Clubs and got donations. We went to Whangarei Lions Club and they said, “There’s no way you’re going to get that in there! So we’re not going to give you anything.” Of course – you put a challenge like that in front of farmers … We got it in here all right! So their donations came forward.

We bought it at the right price. It came to the Tangihua site on big house-removal trailers from Whangarei in three pieces.

A portacom (which is the ablution block now) also became available from the same place, so we bought it too.

The portacom was brought in to the site first. Ken Chambers brought it from Whangarei on a truck. It had to be removed from Whangarei six months before the site was ready for it, so it sat on skids outside the bush for six months.

I pegged everything out on the site to ensure we got all the levels right. The deck was built after the buildings were in.

Hugh McLennan and I went in to Whangarei to see the main building. I had drawn up all the plans. We measured up and marked it out so that they knew just where to chop it. The building had to go under 100 sets of power and telephone lines along the roads when transporting it out from Whangarei. We had to lower it down to the ceiling level. All the trusses and roofing iron had to be dismantled. The trusses are the frames that hold everything up and you don’t normally dismantle them, but we had no option.

The Lodge building was chopped in three pieces to get it in to the site. To remove a building like this with no supporting walls, dummy walls had to be put in (framework and then braced with ply), otherwise it would have collapsed. Two of the pieces were 60 feet (18m) long. You can imagine bringing that in on the road through the bush. It had to be covered in tarpaulins because of the weather
The first day was quite nice weather. The second day, it poured with rain all day. By the third day, there was a sea of mud about a foot deep. That’s the sort of conditions we were working in.

There was not too much clearance. It’s a credit to the building removal firm – they didn’t even scratch the spouting. It took one day per section to get the building in. There were three sections plus the portacom so it took four days to actually bring all the sections on-site. The portacom is set six inches lower than the Lodge building in order to get a better fall on the roof. All those sorts of things we had to calculate out before anything was moved in.

Putting it all together

This is when the really time consuming work began.

There’s not a lot of room around the building site, so each section had to come in in the right order: day one, day two, day three, and the fourth day – across the end.

Because of how deep the mud was the truck towing that trailer couldn’t go anywhere. He had to rely on this tractor, with big stays down the back and a big winch, to maneuver it around.
To remove a building like this with no supporting walls, dummy walls had to be put in (framework and then braced with ply). That’s the only way we could keep it together; otherwise, it would have collapsed.

Once it was reassembled our Lions Club really had a lot of work to do. It was all lined with GIB board. Our aim was always to build it “idiot proof” – all due respect to everybody. Children are going to put holes through GIB board so we spent one day with sledge hammers smashing it all down. Then we started re-lining it from scratch. The lining is all tongue-in-groove, so it had to be put on one board at a time. It took two very capable guys four days to line one side. However, that will handle most things. It’s all lined with pine. It’s not actually Radiata, I think it’s Pinus Pinaster.

There’s a covered deck between the main lodge and the porticoms. To connect them up we had to run long-run iron right across. To get a reasonable slope, the floor level of the portacom is six inches lower than the floor level of the rest of the building. Because the portacom wasn’t as long as the main building, we made use of that and we built a disabled toilet on one end and a drying room on the other end.

A good kitchen is vital for any social event and we made sure we had a first class kitchen put in

Landscaping

This was a major time consuming job.

• The grassed area had to be smoothed off and re grassed,
• septic tanks out in
• a water supply sourced and connected up
• a BBQ was built which has since been replaced by a large table
• all the unused are replanted

There were a lot of volunteers. The plumbers in Whangarei did all the plumbing work, including the sewage work, and they gave their time for free. All we had to do was pay for the materials. It was a huge help. The plumbing people from Whangarei all got to know one another. They gave us 450 hours of voluntary time.

Confidence Course

No school camp is replete with out a confidence course.

Maurice Brownlee designed the confidence course after looking at three others around the North Island. He got a team together, scavenged the materials and built it.

it was hard work and when you are working up in the air like that, everything takes twice as long but they had a lot of fun doing this

Once, at the end of the day, they put all their tools away and discovered that one of these wire ropes went through under the top rung of the ladder. What did they do? They cut the rung of the ladder!

Tracks and tramps

Walking Tracks had to be put in for schools to travel through the bush.

There are at least 8km of walking tracks, most of which I sighted-in using a slasher. They have been taken over by DOC who maintain them There is also the the Burma trail and orienteering course for more information about the tracks visit The Tangihua tracks and tramps on this website.

We also found the remains of some of the gear the early Bushmen used: cross-cut saws, bullock yokes, and timber jacks. There was even an old bath that they would get in to wash. These were found about 400 yards (approximately 365m) from the Lodge building, down where the Kauri dam site is.

The opening of the main lodge

We got the retired president of Outward Bound in Nelson to come up and officially open it. There were about 500 people there. We just finished opening it and the rain tumbled down. Everybody ran into the Lodge!

Our Mid-Western Lions Club built it and then on Opening Day it was handed over to a Trust. The Trust Board has about five Lions members, a representative from the local Iwi, and a representative from the local farmers. The Trust runs it now, not the Lions Club. It was handed over debt-free.

Hugh Tennent was the first Trust Chairman.

The LCIF (Lions Club International Fund) Building

The LCIF Building was funded by the grant which we received from the Lions Club International Fund

The LCIF Building is a self-contained flat that also has a workshop at one end. It is often used as a sick bay or staffroom for school groups.

This building was built by a building firm to the closed-in stage. Then our lions clubs did all the inside work and built all the decks.

About the Author:

Bob was born in December 1936. When Bob was young, his father built and operated a native timber mill on their farm. After leaving school, Bob completed a four year Forestry Training Course in Kaingaroa Forest which is between Rotorua and Taupo. As well as farming, he enjoys hunting and fishing, indoor bowls, and spending time with family and friends.

Bob was a founding member of the Mid-Western Lions Club and is currently still a member there.