Tributes for two old girls who died after crash in Houhora

Marion Andrew taking a break from laughing her cackly laugh all morning and letting Pauline Ogilvy hold the rooms attention with her big beautiful personality. Photo / Supplied

Sheree Wagener is one of many who will long remember Marion Andrew and Pauline Ogilvy, who were fatally injured in a two-car crash on Houhora Heads Road on Tuesday last week.

She posted a 2016 photo of the "two old girls" at a Pink Ribbon breakfast at Raio Hall on Facebook, saying Mrs Andrew was taking a break from laughing all morning while Mrs Ogilvy held the room's attention with her "big beautiful personality."

"These tight-knit old girls had seemed unbreakable," she said, and losing them had left a huge hole.

Betsy Young described them as beautiful wahine toa who would be missed, Jacquie Bates saying their voices and laughter would long be heard at Houhora.

Meanwhile Houhora Heads campground proprietor Cathy Wagener has appealed to the Far North District Council to paint arrows on the road to remind foreign drivers to keep left.

"These tourists, a lovely couple from Chile, had arrived the night before, having found the accommodation they had booked elsewhere closed," she said.

"On the morning of the accident they went to the office and asked to book another night. They said they had fallen in love with the camp ... They headed out the drive, and within a couple of hundred metres were involved in this dreadful accident."

Earlier the same morning a campervan had been driven on the wrong side of the same road, a local woman who was following tooting and signalling until the driver realised their mistake and corrected.

"There have been a number of near misses on other occasions, and this is an ongoing problem," Mrs Wagener added.

"We have decided to put up a notice at the gate asap, reminding visitors to drive on the left. Would it be possible for the council to paint arrows on the road outside the camp as a further reminder to tourists to keep left?"

Mayor John Carter said he would ask council staff to address the issue, as they had been asked to do on West Coast Road (Waipapakauri) and other tourist roads.

Charges denied by Chilean driver

Twenty-eight-year-old Chilean national Dante Felipe Basaez Vera denied two charges of careless driving causing death at Houhora Heads last week, and one of careless driving causing injury, when he appeared before Judge Deidre Orchard in the Kaitaia District Court yesterday.

He was remanded on bail, without a residence condition, to appear again on July 4 for a case review.

Judge Orchard, who addressed the defendant through an interpreter, noted that he had surrendered his passport to police.