Thanks Gav. It will be interesting to see it for myself when we go back there this weekend.

these old buildings are on fire releasing asbestos into the air. the wind is carring the .toxic smoke over Patea with some residents being evacuated through the night with the town on alert. The Waitangi Day concert in the small town has been cancelled, This is a beautiful old ruin as a photographer I love it. I hope fire fighters and residents stay safe

Striking subject, well presented. Funny how you can live near to a subject and not realise how it could photograph well. I like it.

I like the "super" landscape orientation, and B&W fits the rather desolate subject.

I don't know if you simply removed the colour by desaturating as your description suggests, but if you did I'd recommend experimenting with the channel mixer in PS. If you alter the balance of the RGB channels, setting the output to monochrome and holding the luminosity constant (there's a selection box I think you can check to do this) then you can get a great range of effects, particularly in altering the tonal values in the mid tones and sky thereby giving greater punch and contrast to the image.