Bluff Station's CHB stock manager in post-quake clean up mode

AT WORK: CHB's Gray Rees, stock manager at Bluff Station where significant damage occurred during the Kaikoura earthquake.

It will take years to repair the damage the 7.8 magnitude Kaikoura earthquake wreaked on Bluff Station, says the station's Central Hawke's Bay-raised stock manager Gray Rees.

Mr Rees has been employed at the 12,140ha property located between Blenheim and Kaikoura for about five months, and said that the early hours of Monday morning this week was the most frightening experience of his life that he wouldn't wish on anyone.

It took him a few moments to work out what was going on just after midnight when he was raised from sleep by the dog barking.

"I realised I had to get up and get in the doorway - I was holding onto my partner, and had my back jammed against one side and my hand on the other. If we hadn't been there we would have been thrown around the room.

"The place all fell down around us, it was made of bricks but we were lucky that the wooden frame stayed up."

Once the shaking stopped enough for them to get out of the house, the pair spent the rest of the night in a truck in a clear space in the middle of the paddock.

Located about two hours from Blenheim, and then another 40 minutes along a private road on the station, daylight revealed the extent of the destruction, he said.

"Everything was everywhere, there wasn't a plate or cup left that was not smashed - TVs and everything were on the floor, the chimneys on the ground."

Surrounded by large rockfaces he said tremors every couple of minutes meant there was constant dust and rockslides.

After eating breakfast on a table in the paddock, the next challenge was getting out to civilisation.

"We had to cut our way out to get out - it took about half a day with the four-wheel-drive, shovels and chainsaws - there were landslips all along the driveway, rock and gravel everywhere."

The station is home to about 10 staff, and four to five houses, only one of which is now habitable, he said.

Since the earthquake efforts have been focused on getting a makeshift water supply going. Power was restored on Thursday.

"We have had the generators going. We've got docking coming up soon so we have been organising frozen food and other supplies. Because we're so isolated we're quite self-sufficient so have got most things we need."

The house is becoming something of a base for efforts to help other people on neighbouring properties who are still cut off.

"There's helicopters landing and people checking in."

Yesterday, he made the journey to Blenheim, again requiring four-wheel-drive vehicles to get around broken bridges and navigate the damaged road.

He was joined there by his parents Owen and Mandy Rees, who live in Waipukurau, and who are lending a hand to weather-proof a couple of the houses that should be habitable again in a couple of days, knock chimneys down, basically get things cleaned up and the farm working again.

That included getting water supplies up and running for the stock, most of which have been moved to the front of the farm.

The back of the farm is completely cut off, so checks on that have been done via helicopter and horseback.

Mr Rees said the damage to the infrastructure of the property will take years to repair although permanently changed from what it was just over a week ago.