Our Treasures: The Northland Vintage Machinery Club chugs along at Heritage Park

Tractor and trailer rides through the Heritage Park are a highlight. Photo / Northland Vintage Machinery Club

One of my favourite things about visiting the clubs in the Heritage Park at Kiwi North is meeting the club members and hearing their stories. Talking to the guys at the Northland Vintage Machinery Club was an absolute highlight for me this week. I stopped by their clubrooms expecting to hear stories of tractors, but I walked away with so much more!

The Northland Vintage Machinery Club, tucked away at the end of the gravel driveway is a trove of farming treasures with four large display rooms containing crawler tractors, wheel tractors and stationary engines, all lovingly restored by club members since the club’s incorporation in 1993.

Unlike many of the heritage clubs that moved from other locations, the Northland Vintage Machinery Club has always called the park home.

The original building - currently a display room, club room and kitchen - was built by club members using materials sourced from the demolished Glassworks in Whangārei, which once operated on the site where Woolworths now stands in Okara Dr.

This building was dedicated to foundation club member Tracey McKenzie when it opened in 1994. Another foundation member, Max Wesley, is a former glass cutter at the Glassworks and is now the Patron and oldest member of the Northland Vintage Machinery Club.

The club’s facilities expanded in 2005 with the addition of the Royce Jobe Shed. Then in 2021 a new two-storey building, with two more display rooms, the Dickson’s Room and the Laurent Room, was built and dedicated to the then club president Dick Thorburn.

Dick and Dawn Thorburn.

All four display rooms are brimming with stunningly restored machinery and equipment once used to develop and shape Northland.

Among the many impressive machines on display is a 400 horsepower Dorman Diesel Engine which once served as a generator at the sewerage works. This is currently being restored. There is a 1937 Caterpillar D4 which, operated by Monty Jenkins, was instrumental in the implementation of gun emplacements around Whangārei during World War II.

The oldest tractor on display is a 1917 Fordson Model F. There is also a 1955 Fordson Major, which was driven from North Cape to Bluff by foundation club member Jimmy Gunson and his wife Ora.

A Fordson Model F.

As well as their impressive displays, upon which kids are welcome to investigate, the Northland Vintage Machinery Club members look forward to delighting the community with their tractor/trailer rides. These operate on the third Sunday of every month and on Wednesdays during the school holidays.

This highly anticipated attraction is a rumpy, bumpy way to explore the depths of the grounds, the forest and areas of the Heritage Park seldom seen. Funds raised by these rides go to maintaining the tractors and buildings and for the restoration of machinery.

As with all the heritage clubs, new members are always welcome. Club chairman Neville Edge would love to see more people join, and said, “Regardless of skills, as long as there is an interest in what we’re doing, there is a place here”.

Current members include men and women, retired and employed and people from a wide range of backgrounds.

Taika (left), the youngest member of the Northland Vintage Machinery Club, pictured with the eldest member, Max.

As Edge nears his first anniversary as chairman, he reflects on his 12 years of membership and says what he treasures most is the companionship and the ability to preserve history.

For me, I’m just so happy to have been invited into conversations because it is the people, the memories and the stories behind the signage that are the real treasures in the Heritage Park.