Mike Bellamy - Tough Country: Tall tales of bushmen, bulldozers and back-country blokes

Contents

This book is dedicated to the memory

of my father, Barry Bellamy, and to the

memory of my brother, Darryl Bellamy.

Contents

ONE MORNING WE WERE having breakfast in the old farmhouse at Forsyth Downs Station. Minnie, her four kids and I were lined up along either side of the long table. Dad was sitting at the head of the table, peering out through the open porch door, when his face lit up with glee. Hed spotted something outside on the grass. (He had eyes like a hawk.)

Grab my rifle, boy, he grinned. The gun was leaning up against the kitchen wall behind me.

Puzzled, I leaned back on the wooden bench seat, picked up the rifle and handed it to Dad.

Dad pulled back the bolt on the rifle. Click-click. It was ready for firing. He placed his elbows on the kitchen table to steady the rifle. Then he stopped, moved the salt and pepper shakers out of the way, and took aim again.

Bugger, he muttered. Boy, move that box of cornflakes out of the way.

I rearranged the cereal on the table.

Bit more... a bit more... Yeah, that will do. Now, just nod your head back a bit more, boy.

I leaned back a bit.

Yeah, thats good, boy. He took aim.

Boom! Outside a rat exploded into a ball of fur.

The aroma of bacon cooking in the kitchen was now mixed with the acrid stink of gunpowder.

In a daze, and with my ears ringing, I turned to look at Dad, who was grinning from ear to ear. Havent lost my touch. Got the little bastard!

Putting down the rifle, he pulled out his tin full of Pocket Edition tobacco and rolled a smoke, lit it, and had a coughing fit while the smoke was jiggling up and down in his mouth. He finished with a bit of a snort, and then hoed into his fried eggs and bacon.

It was the mid-1970s, I was about eight, and I thought it was completely normal for your old man to pull out a high-powered deer-hunting rifle and fire it through the kitchen door from the breakfast table...

MY FATHER WAS A WANDERER who spent much of his life traversing that part of New Zealand from Hawkes Bay up to the Far North. Dad was a hard but fair bloke, a real old-school bushman who lived rough a lot of the time. He was 34 when I was born. Mum booted him out when I was five and my brother Gaz was nine. After he left, I missed Dad terribly. While we stayed in Taupo, Dad moved around a lot, so I didnt see him much for the first couple of years, then, when I was about seven, Mum decided I was old enough to spend a bit more time with him.

Dad would turn up to pick me up for the school holidays (when he remembered) and Id be waiting on the porch all excited. Sometimes he wouldnt show up at all; but when he did, he would always have a new vehicle. I thought he must have been a millionaire, but it wasnt until later that I realised hed get the cars on tick then never pay them off, so theyd get repossessed. I hate to think how much money he lost over the years in paying deposits then getting the cars repoed.

One day, Dad arrived to pick me up. I was inside the house and I heard him having a bit of a chat with Mum or, more like, she was giving him a lecture. I caught the last bit of the conversation, which went something like: And, Barry, dont give Mike any more animal parts. A rabbits tail is fine; I could even tolerate the sheep skull but I draw the line at deers ears and feet. I found them a week later, rotting in his schoolbag. Disgusting, Barry, absolutely disgusting!

Dad protested, The boy wanted them for a school project, while trying not to laugh.

I didnt hear Mums reply, as Dad called out, Ready, boys? Lets go!

I ran outside, and parked up in the driveway was a pale blue Chev Impala. It was absolutely huge, really long in the body, and it was easily the flashest car Id ever seen. I opened what I thought was the passenger door and started to climb in.

Dad laughed. Nah, boy. This is a funny car. The steering wheel is on this side. Hop round the other side, boy. It was a left-hand drive.

After clambering into the right side of the car, we were on the road heading out of Taupo well, nearly. We had a quick stop at De Bretts Hotel, although it wasnt Dads usual haunt. He came out holding a brown paper bag with two bottles of beer inside. Back in the car, he pulled a bottle out and whipped the top off it with his seatbelt before taking a swig and shoving the bottle between his legs. Then he pulled out his silver tobacco tin and rolled himself a smoke. That tobacco tin was the only possession he managed to keep for years, until, eventually, he lost it like he had most of the other things he owned.

Beer and smokes sorted, we were finally away, heading through the Kaingaroa Forest towards Rangitaiki. As we drove past the Pan Pac Kenworth logging trucks waiting to be weighed at the 60/8 weighbridge at the entrance to the forest at Iwitahi, I smiled.

Dad had worked in the forest when I was younger, and hed taken us for rides in his logging truck. As we approached the weighbridge we had to duck down under the dashboard, giggling and laughing, only popping our heads back up once we were safely past. No children were allowed in the forest, but you could ride in the truck outside the forest.

Sometimes Dad would stick to the rules and drop us off at the weighbridge on his way into the forest. Wed hang out there and wait for the hour or so it took him to go into the forest and load his truck. We always had mates there to hang out with, as most of the kids at my school had fathers who either drove logging trucks or were bushmen. There was a whole fleet of trucks working in the Kaingaroa Forest at the time, and I loved watching them all getting weighed and checked.

But even though the forest was familiar territory, the southern end of that vast pine forest seemed dark and eerie to me. The miles and miles of pine trees looked scary as you peered down the long rows of trees fading into darkness.

The trip in the truck over the NapierTaupo Road to the mill at Whirinaki, just north of Napier, was a nightmare. Parts were very narrow, not much wider than a goat track; and if we met another truck coming the other way, Dad would have to pull right over to the edge of the metal road. I would look out the passenger window straight down into the gorge, with the Waipunga River snaking along far below us. Within the thick native bush, I could see glimpses of colour from a wrecked truck and stock crates that hadnt been so lucky. Dad reckoned there were a few wrecks down there.

Driving in the Chev was much more comfortable than in one of those old logging trucks, thats for sure. When we were nearly at Rangitaiki, Dad pulled up short and headed down a long driveway to the Rangitaiki Tavern. In the car park was an old horse-drawn chuck wagon. Inside the pub, there were foreign banknotes pasted all over the wall. Back then, some country pubs let kids in during the daytime; and if we were allowed in, Gaz and I would play pool for hours. On this trip, we werent so lucky, so we waited for Dad in the car.

When he finally came out of the pub, we took a short trip down to Matea Road. Dad was camped in a little cottage on a Lands and Survey block, where he was fencing with Owen Grattan, an old hunter-bushman mate of his.

Owen smoked a pipe, and hed always hoick and spit, then tap his pipe out to clean it. As kids, me and Gaz would imitate him, saying Im Owen Grattan and then hoick and spit and pretend to tap a pipe. We thought that was hilarious.

While Dad was working, his girlfriend, Chrissy, looked after us during the day. Well, sort of. Dad thought she was looking after us, but she pretty much left us to our own devices. She was only young herself, and looking after a couple of kids wasnt something she had any experience of doing.