#52Ancestors, Water

Water is such a useful element. For some of us it has therapeutic properties – nothing like walking alongside a babbling brook, or watching the waves crash on the rocks or beach to clear your mind. For others it is something to avoid like the plague – an irrational fear; is it really irrational though if you can’t swim or you get seasick just looking at a boat ?

It sustains us, it helps plants grow, and crops and feeds farm animals. It falls from the sky (if we are lucky) and nourishes life. It is used for recreation; swimming, sailing, rowing, kayaking, surfing, even ice skating and skiing if it gets cold enough.

Water is a renewable resource (as long as there is enough rain) it is a clean, sustainable energy source.

My grandfather was a fitter and turner. He completed his apprenticeship with P & D Duncan Ltd Christchurch between 1922-1927 and stayed on until at least the middle of 1928. By 1929 he was employed by what was to become State Hydro Department and was working at Lake Coleridge the first large power station which had been built by the state between 1911-1914, From there a life long association with hydroelectricity began.

Those early stations in South Island were each constructed on separate rivers. The first state owned station in North Island was Mangahao commissioned in 1924. During WW1 the government investigated large schemes in North Island and planning for what became the foundation of the country’s 20^th century integrated electricity system began. The Waikato River scheme built multiple stations on one river, using the same water over and over again to generate electricity and power the nation beginning with Arapuni commissioned in 1929.

As a child my mother moved from station to station following her father’s employment. She and her siblings were born in Kurow, while her father was at Waitaki. He had moved there shortly before his marriage and his new bride followed a little later once cottages were built for married men allowing them to be joined by their families. From Waitaki they moved to Highbank on the Rakaia near Methven, and then to North Island: first to System Control at Hamilton and then to Mangahao, Maraetai as Assistant Station Superintendent and lastly Whakamaru where he was Station Superintendent when it was commissioned in 1956.

In 1924 my grandfather’s elder brother Frank aged 20 told his parents he and a mate were off to Auckland for a holiday…but went to Sydney instead. Construction for the harbour bridge had only just begun, but Sydney wasn’t were Uncle Frank ended up. He went south and found employment in the Latrobe Valley where the State of Victoria was beginning what would be a 70 year programme of power development based on brown coal deposits. Yallourn was a thermal, coal fired station, still using water (from the Latrobe River) but in a different way, to generate electricity for the masses.

In 1947 my Dad joined the State Hydro-electric Department as a draughting cadet. After two years he progressed to become an engineering cadet and went on to study at the School of Engineering at Ardmore. He met my mother while working at Whakamaru and Maraetai. In Hamilton he worked with the District Power Station operation and maintenance often spending days visiting stations on the Waikato. I remember a couple of times he drove the pilot vehicle ahead of the wide or long load trucks transporting massive pieces of machinery. Sometimes if we were at Nana and Grandad’s we would go up to the top of the section where you could spot a piece of the road between the trees to watch them.

In 1972 we moved to Wellington, Head Office where Dad took up a position as Design Engineer, working on the design of stations in the Upper Waitaki Scheme specifically Ohau A, B & C.

As kids we knew those power station names like the back of our hands along the Waikato; Aratiatia, Ohakuri, Atiamuri, Whakamaru, Maraetai, Waipapa, Arapuni, Karapiro. Along with others we had visited on family holidays, sometimes staying in the village hostel, Tuai and Piripaua at Waikaremoana, Benmore, Aviemore and Waitaki.

Lots of things stick in my memory from those holidays; my brother locking himself in the toilet at the hostel at Waitaki, learning about the salmon ladder at Aviemore, the force of water spilling down the dams, the immense size of the earthmoving equipment.

We knew all about headraces and tailraces, pipelines and penstocks, turbines and generators – and water was what made it all happen.