Two wheels in an emergency

HELP ON WHEELS: Cycle Gisborne owners Anelia Evans (left) and Katrina Duncan (second right) lent bikes to cyclone-affected Mangapapa residents Di and Russ Holland. Picture supplied

Katrina Duncan loves nothing more than to show off the very best of Tairāwhiti to visitors and locals alike, but for now, she’s part of an army of volunteers trying to restore some sort of semblance of normality to the cyclone-ravaged region.

Instead of ferrying clients and their bikes around and setting them off into the wild blue yonder, the co-owner of Cycle Gisborne is putting the company’s van and trailer to good use delivering supplies and transporting fellow volunteers around.

“I felt a bit useless doing nothing and we had cancelled all our clients in preparation for the storm,” said Katrina. “While our home was unaffected, many of our tourism partners and roads were pummelled so I wanted to help out where I could.”

That included helping at the volunteer collection point at the Poverty Bay Bowling Club in Ormond Road, organising a load of mattresses, sanitary items, clothing and toys which she took to Wairoa, and heading out to Eastwoodhill to help.

“The load to Wairoa was welcomed with open arms,” she says. “At Eastwoodhill there was heaps to be done.”

It all proved a distraction from her own business. “All of your hard-earned business goes out the window, which is pretty disheartening. You have to refund clients again and again and again . . . I guess it is the annual ‘pull your head in and start again’, which is hard.”

But there was plenty she saw that filled her heart, including “seeing all Di and Russ Holland’s neighbours bring back all their belongings that had turned up on their back lawns”.

“They were in shock and operating in zombie mode.”

Cycle Gisborne lent bikes to the Hollands to get around on after they lost their own cars and bikes in the Mangapapa flash flood.

“I saw local farmers on the Tiniroto Road filling the gigantic pot holes to make it safer for locals. I was pretty buoyed by the people who just got out there and dealt to the problems. There were so many of them doing that . . .they weren’t just sitting around waiting for help — rather they all just got stuck in.”

She also helped with a happy ending of sorts, reconnecting Mark Sceats with his kayak that had made its way down the Waimata River, fetching up past Midway Beach.