There will be one final auction at the famous Owaka saleyards in early August. However, it won’t be for calves or cattle, instead it will be for all the fences, gates, planks, rails, chains and nails that have stood there for the past 100 or so years. John Cosgrove reports.
The Owaka Lions have been hard at work for the past month now dismantling the old saleyards and said they were about halfway through the task.
Owaka Lions member Alan Burgess said they bid for the contract to dismantle and sell off the yards’ equipment.
‘‘We were successful with our bid to PGG Wrightsons, so now we have to strip it all down, clean it up (everything that’s saleable), arrange it in lots and sell it all off to raise money for us and the Owaka Rugby Club.
‘‘They have been helping us with a lot of the heavy lifting of the more than 70 metal gates off their hinges.
‘‘There has been a core group of three of us who have come down each day and we have carefully pulled up all the posts, filled in the holes, unbolted all the railway iron rails and timber planks used on the pens, cleaned all [of] them (and other bits like chains and clasps) up and stored them all onsite,’’ he said. ‘‘The main building is staying here for now, PGGW plan to sell that and the land separately, our job is to recycle all the timber and steel used in the pens over the years,’’ he said.
The Owaka cattle saleyards were originally one of two sets of stock yards in the small rural Catlins township.
Mr Burgess said there were five stock firms in Owaka when he was a child.
‘‘My grandfather, Thomas Maginness, was one of the first stock agents to sell here, my brother John and I used to go down to watch the sales whenever we could.’’
The sheep yards closed in the early 1960s as numbers declined because of a boom in cattle breeding in the region.
In the 1970s, the cattle yards were expanded and the owners (several of the original stock companies who by now had merged) built a covered auction stand on the site.
Earlier this year, owners PGG Wrightson conducted the last cattle sale and have now moved their operations to the more modern Balclutha saleyards.
‘‘We didn’t have a scales to weigh the animals and the electronics needed to make it viable, so they moved to Balclutha,’’ said Mr Burgess.
The Owaka Rugby club president, Sam Landreth, said its members had been helping out a lot in the demolition process.
‘‘We are working with the Owaka Lions on this project because it is a community fundraiser and we need to raise funds to improve and upgrade our lighting on our fields,’’ he said.
Mr Burgess said there were strong links between the saleyards and the rugby club in the district.
‘‘Many of the 50-odd local stock agents who worked here used to also play rugby for the club. There were some hard men there I can tell you,’’ he said.
During the annual cattle sales over the years, the rugby club members worked as volunteers marshalling the cattle beasts around while the Lions kept the maintenance up on the yards, he said.
‘‘There has been much happening behind the scenes to get to where we are today, and already many farmers and contractors have been ringing me up wanting to know when they [can] buy the stuff at the auction,’’ Mr Burgess said.
