TRACTOR CARAVAN

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 141, 2 July 1937, Page 8

TRACTOR CARAVAN

-Own Correspondent.)

May Carve Its Own Roads . J0URNEY T0 TAUPO

(Bv Telesrrapb-

AUCKLAND, Last Night. Lumbering along little-used baok country roads, fording streams and perhaps even carving out its own trail, a kuge 15-ton tractor with a heavy gradobuilder, or bulldozer, attached will within a few days, be entering Ihe mo&t picturesque stage of what is^ almost a pioneerng tractor journey into the afforestation country near Taupo. In Auckland to-day the traetox was being loaded on to a large railway trpck in readiness for the first seetion of its long journey from the city, having been lifted out by floating crane from the freighter NaTdana. Berhaps the largest example of the crawler-type tractor ever seen here, the maehine comes from American factories and bas a massive grade-builder, the first of its kind in New Zealand, attaehed. The big job of delivery to Afforestation Proprietary, I/td., is being undertaken by the Electric Construetion Company, the North Island agents.

Railed as far as Edgecumbe, near Whakatane, the tractor will be placed on the road there and driven to its final desiination under its own power. There is an element of the romance of pioieering in the plans for that part of the journey, for after a few miles of highway have been traverscd, littlousod routes will be followed. It had been found impossible to uso the Eoto-rua-Taupo highway because of tho load restrictions on the bridges, and so a low-class road tkrougk country bordering on the Urewera district was chosen. It is a road of tho type marked on maps by dotted lines. Streams will have to be forded, rough, wild country will have to be negotiated. Nearing the heart of the island the tractor, with the bulldozer operating in front may have to carve its own route through bush and up hill-sides. A car will follow as far as possible to take the driver and his' assislant back to lodgings each night, for settlements there are few. Four miles an hour is expected to be the tractor 's average speed for this 100. mile route. Once it is delivered the maehine will bo put to work in the formation of about 300 miles of firebreaks in tho man-niade forests. Powered by the latest in controlled ignition fucl-injec-tion engines, it is said to be capable of doing the work of twenty men.