From silt to sanctity: Eskdale and Pōrangahau communities still cleaning gravesites

Gareth Treloar removes silt left behind after Cyclone Gabrielle from a family member's grave in Eskdale Cemetery, Napier. Photo / Warren Buckland

Ōtāne resident Gareth Treloar stood at Eskdale Cemetery with a shovel, ready to do some digging in the broad daylight of Wednesday afternoon.

His wife’s late grandmother lay buried under an extra five to six inches of silt, “a little more than expected”, which he says took about seven wheelbarrow loads to clear.

Some cemeteries and urupā across Hawke’s Bay were hit hard by Cyclone Gabrielle, and while most have been cleaned up, some further afield remain daunting tasks for the community to tackle.

NZ Remembrance Army Napier co-ordinator Denise Gore said the Remembrance Army had working bees with their volunteers on Easter Friday and Sunday to help the community clean up parts of Eskdale Cemetery.

She said the level of devastation was unlike anything she or her volunteers were used to dealing with.

“We clean graves, but this is next-level,” Gore said.

“It can take up to an hour to dig the silt out of one.”

She said she found silt up to six feet high on one monument.

“Hats off to people who are doing that all over Hawke’s Bay at the moment, not just [in] cemeteries, but orchards and helping people with their houses.”

Eskdale Cemetery was the worst-affected of the cemeteries in Napier City Council's area. Photo / Warren Buckland

Pōrangahau’s Rongomaraeroa Marae chairman Anthony Tipene-Matua said it wasn’t the first time their Kaiwhitikitiki urupā had been underwater in flooding, but this time it was very severe, and damage was spread across the marae and community as well.

“The ferocity of the water was so strong that it carried a lot of slash, huge logs, and it just smashed the fences down - it did quite extensive damage to headstones and left a lot of silt and mud everywhere,” Tipene-Matua said.

He said they were geographically located close to the river and did not have stopbanks or anything else to mitigate the flooding.

He said they had people from across the world with links to Pōrangahau and Kaiwhitikitiki who wanted to know if there was any loss of life, what the state of the marae was and how their loved ones both living at Rongomaraeroa Marae and buried at Kaiwhitikitiki were.

He said notable ancestors buried at Kaiwhitikitiki included Hineiwhakarata and Māori politician and leader Hēnare Te Koura Matua.

“It is a place of the utmost importance for our people of Ngāti Kere, as it is where our loved ones rest,” he said.

“We got our elders to gather outside the gate and do the rituals of karakia and a few hymns just to lift the mamae [pain]. There was a bit of pain, then we got on with the work to clean it up,” he said.

“We were isolated for a good week or so in terms of machinery and all that sort of stuff, so a lot of locals just used their own diggers and their own trucks, which really helped us to get where we are now.”

He said the next phase of the rebuild will involve getting proper barrier fences around the site and letting families decide what will happen with their plots.

All cemeteries in the Napier and Hastings areas are now open according, to Napier City Council (NCC) and Hastings District Council (HDC).

NCC parks, reserves and sports grounds team leader Jason Tickner said Eskdale Cemetery was the worst-affected of the cemeteries within NCC’s boundaries.

“Families, volunteers, contractors and council staff have worked together to clear the cemetery of silt,” Tickner said.

“There is still some work to do there. However, Council has been in regular contact with the Bay View and Eskdale communities and families as we collectively finish the clean-up. Council will look to sow new grass and tidy the general area at the appropriate time.”

An HDC spokesperson said Hastings and Mangaroa cemeteries were impacted by the heavy rain, with water sitting for some days before it subsided.

The spokesperson said heavy rain also caused some graves to sink in the Hastings, Havelock North, Mangaroa and Puketapu cemeteries.

The spokesperson said council cemetery staff had completed all restoration work.

“All sunken plots have been topped up and reseeded as soon as it was possible to get in.”

They said no cemetery under their jurisdiction was affected by slips or silt, although ten trees fell over in Havelock North Cemetery and two trees fell over in Hastings Cemetery.