A sign on the Pike River Mine gate referencing the re-entry into the mine that has now been delayed. Photo / Kurt Bayer
A sign on the Pike River Mine gate referencing the re-entry into the mine that has now been delayed. Photo / Kurt Bayer
The long and winding road ends with a sign.
"Thank you for returning. Kia Kaha. From the families," it says.
Also hanging from the wire mesh of the Pike River Mine security gates: "Thank you Aotearoa. We couldn't have done it without you all. Thank you."
A bit further back,29 white crosses stand roadside, soldierly, adorned with blue miners helmets. More crosses are spray painted on the tarmac to remember the 29 men who drove to work, right up here, on the morning of Friday, November 19, 2010 and never came home.
It's been a long, arduous and emotional journey for the families left behind.
Tomorrow, a crack team of three expert miners were due to enter the mine's portal to find out just what happened at the now-infamous coal mine deep in the rugged, green hills of Paparoa Ranges, some 46km northeast of Greymouth.
But yesterday, the re-entry team discovered "unexpected and unexplained" oxygen readings from "borehole 51", some 2.3km into the mine – around where the roof collapsed in the 2010 explosions.
The re-entry was delayed. Locals have been left stunned.
"It's extremely frustrating, even after eight-and-a-half years," sighed Grey District Mayor Tony Kokshoorn.
"Everyone's looking for closure. They need to get on with it."
Another local, a shopkeeper, said: "It just feels like another kick in the guts."
The families were gutted too. Even the ones who have campaigned for years to go back and who have made close bonds with the miners heading back underground.
Sonya Rockhouse, whose son Ben died in the disaster, showed a typically stoic, grounded, no BS West Coast outlook.
"It's just a blip. We've had worse than this to deal with," says Rockhouse whose other son Daniel survived the blast, and who's campaigned tirelessly to re-enter the mine and try to hold someone accountable for the disaster, battling all the way to the Supreme Court.
"We've always maintained that safety is our highest priority. We wouldn't want anybody … God, I wouldn't want that on my conscience, ever."
29 miners helmets sit on crosses erected on the roadside leading up to the Pike River mine near Greymouth. Photo / Alan Gibson
Reminders of the tragedy are everywhere in Greymouth – the next biggest town.
A stunning and beautifully crafted statue stands on the town's floodwall, "In memory of those lost in coal mining incidents within the West Coast Inspection District."
In the pink-fronted Maggie's Kitchen cafe on Mackay St, a poem crafted by a visiting diner in the days after the tragedy pays tribute to the lost men.
Today, the re-entry plans were the chat of the barbershop.
"What are they actually going to achieve tomorrow?"
"Didn't the evidence go up the chimney?"
"They're not spending this much money for nothing."
Anna Osborne, chairwoman for the Pike River Family Reference Group and whose husband Milton died in the tragedy, whipped an email around her families before the media announcement, telling them of the delay.
Like her friend Sonya Rockhouse, she wasn't downcast either. Slightly disappointed, yes, but it's no show stopper, she said. Once the issues have been dealt with, "it will be back on".
Osborne said Pike River mine bosses had "played Russian roulette with the men" and the Pike River Recovery Agency won't be doing that.
"This is only a hiccup. They are working very hard to correct this."
She is almost positive that the re-entry will go ahead soon but only when everyone is safe.
"That's what we want."
29 crosses mark the road leading up to the Pike River mine near Greymouth. Photo / Alan Gibson
Tomorrow, a service at the mine's eerie entrance into the Paparoa Ranges mountainside will still go ahead, with Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern expected to attend along with several families, some travelling from overseas.
They will drive from Greymouth, past the bronze memorial to the 65 coal miners killed in the 1896 Brunner disaster, past the turnoff to Blackball - birthplace of the New Zealand Labour Party following the 1908 miners "cribtime" strike, past the Pike River memorial garden at Atarau, and up into the cloud-wrapped hills and those Pike River Mine gates.
"Thank you for returning. Kia Kaha. From the families."
