| 3 T T Hugh de Lacy Menzi Muck’s growing reputation The Menzi Muck spiders can work on near-vertical cliffs and hills, accessing unstable land and remote sites to deliver safer, faster and more cost-effective results. REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT Tough Terrain “We can handle a 45-degree slope quite comfortably with just the spider, and when we encounter one up to or over 60 degrees, we bring in the winch.” He arrived in New Zealand from England seven years ago as an arborist and set himself up as a sole operator in that sector, but when his main client went bust George Moore found himself evolving into an all-terrain excavation contractor with a company called Tough Terrain. Initially at a loose end as to what to do with the gear he’d accumulated before this sudden absence of work, he decided to offer specialist difficult terrain services built around a Swiss brand of spider digger called the Menzi Muck. There were only three of them in New Zealand at the time, but they are capable of performing digging operations on impossibly steep hillsides. “I’m not sure where I first heard of them, but their all-terrain capacity looked attractive from my point of view as an arborist, and even more so because hardly anyone else in New Zealand was using them,” George says. “It seemed there might be a market for them in New Zealand, so I obtained the agency, and so far, I’ve sold five of them, and the word’s starting to get around.” The Menzi Muck spiders can work on nearvertical cliffs and hills, accessing unstable land and remote sites to deliver safer, faster and more cost-effective results. George has seven of his own Menzi Mucks in his Tough Terrain company — six 14-tonners and a two-tonner — and he has them scattered round the country, able to be shifted by an eight-wheeler truck to any work-site. Currently he has one working in Wairoa, a second in Opotiki, a third in Nelson, others in Southland and Canterbury, and two at his rented Silverdale yard in Auckland to cover the central North Island and Northland. “There didn’t seem to be anybody specialising in this sort of work, and I plumped for becoming an excavation operator rather than an arborist because I was offered a project by a contractor who couldn’t find anyone else capable of doing the job,” George says. “I located my first Menzi Muck spider in Cromwell where it hadn’t seen much use because the owner hadn’t fully exploited its capacity to operate on sharp angles. “We can handle a 45-degree slope quite comfortably with just the spider, and when we encounter one up to or over 60 degrees, we bring in the winch. “After a fairly slow start in the first couple of years the Menzi Mucks are starting to be appreciated by the market, and we’ve also modified Yanmar dumpers so we can control them remotely at angles of up to 60 degrees — something that really impressed the Yanmar manufacturers when they saw them.” Tough Terrain, formed just three years ago, has eight full-time staff including George and, while the Menzi Muck agency is still in its infancy, he expects demand for the spiders to grow — even with a price tag of $1.2m for the 14-tonne model, compared to around $200,000 for a standard digger. “The potential for these machines is only just beginning to be recognised,” George says. WORKING TOGETHER TOGET THE TOUGHEST JOBS DONE! Excavation | Waterways and Dams Trenching and Drainage Installation | Remote and Steep Terrain Projects Compacting and Stabilising Surfaces | Foundation and Piling Work Grouting and Drilling Solutions Mulching | Tree Removal and Forestry Tough Terrain specialises in challenging groundwork, civil engineering, land clearance, and forestry projects across New Zealand. We take on steep, remote, and extreme sites where traditional machines fall short, using Menzi Muck spider excavators built for the toughest conditions. www.toughterrain.co.nz CALL US 021 197 1972
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