Bible survives trip down flooded river

"God works in mysterious ways" is the only way Bill Herlihy can explain how a family heirloom survived a 15km journey down the Oroua River.

Mr Herlihy's Feilding home was washed away on February 16. Inside was his grandfather's 120-year-old leather-bound Bible.

Five days later, John Pearce and his family were cleaning up their Oroua Road property when they came across the Bible pushed up against the fence.

"My first thought was that it was a box of treasure," Mr Pearce said, adding it was amazing the Bible had been found, given its journey through fences and trees. If it had not been on the top of the silt, it would never had been found.

Mr Pearce decided to open it to see if they could find out who owned it. Sure enough, there was a name inside. It was taken to the Catholic Church in Palmerston North, where its owner was quickly found.

They realised at that point they were also related. Mr Pearce's wife, Maree, is Mr Herlihy's second cousin.

Mr Herlihy said he felt guilty about not getting the Bible out of the house.

"It was one of the things I would have got around to getting out of the house, but we couldn't move fast enough."

Once he got the Bible back, he cleaned the leather cover.

"I used a bit of good old spit and polish and it came up shiny."

The Bible was owned by Mr Herlihy's grandfather, who came to New Zealand from Ireland before the turn of the 20th century.

The Bible has yet to finish its journey. It is currently in the freezer at Te Manawa, the Manawatu museum, and will be taken to Wellington tomorrow to be assessed by a specialist book conservator.

Caption: John Pearce, left, who found Bill Herlihy's 120-year-old Bible, which was lost when Mr Herlihy's Feilding home got swept away in the floods.

- NZPA