KEY POINTS:
Diane Coe and Maurice White feel as if they have been evicted by Mother Nature.
The couple and their 8-year-old son, Reece, are one of several Kawakawa Bay families who have left their homes in the small township southeast of Auckland because of a large slip which cut
off the main access road last Monday.
Six houses have been evacuated because they are at risk. The slip moves a few centimetres each day and the Manukau City Council says it could eventually bring down hundreds of thousands of tonnes of debris.
The alternative route to the Manukau and Papakura areas would mean a 100km trip around the coast.
The family are living out of the garage at Mr White's mother's home in Manurewa to avoid the long journey.
If they had stayed at home, it would take Ms Coe, who works in East Tamaki, about an hour and a half each morning to get to work after she had driven around the coast and back up to Clevedon to drop her son at school.
She usually takes about 25 minutes to get to work, driving past Clevedon School on the way. Her husband, a truck driver working out of Manukau, starts at all hours of the morning and said it would have been a "real hassle" to stay.
"It's like we've been evicted," Ms Coe said. "On Monday we thought, 'Yay, the road's closed, no work today.' But come Tuesday we were like, 'This is not funny now."'
The couple bought their house on the Kawakawa-Orere road about two years ago after 15 years of fishing trips to the area.
Diane's brother Tiny Coe, who lives with the family, has moved into the bait shop he works at in Clevedon.
He said the shop lost a lot of business last week with fishermen avoiding the Kawakawa Bay boat ramp because they did not want to travel the long way around.
"You can't do anything when you're cut off. Mother Nature will do what she wants to do."
Orere School, which has a roll of about 37, has set up two extra classrooms, one in the library and one in the hall, to accommodate the 57 Clevedon School pupils who live in Kawakawa Bay. Principal Pamela Banks is expecting about 40 of the children who have not moved closer into the city to turn up this morning.
Mrs Banks, who lives in Maraetai, has had to travel an extra 100km a day to get to school and is considering moving closer while the road is closed. Her usual 35-minute trip through Clevedon and Kawakawa Bay has become a one-and three-quarter-hour trip around the coast.
The closure has also meant that Kawakawa Bay residents needing an ambulance have to wait longer. It would be easier for one from Ngatea, about 65km away, to attend them than one from Papakura, about 24km away. Kawakawa Bay does have an local ambulance but staff are not allowed to transport patients.
Council economic director Rick Walden said that although the landslip movement had slowed, it was still considered dangerous and any heavy rain would cause substantial movement.
The slip is being monitored by geotechnical experts daily and the road is likely to remain closed for about a month.
The council has set up a ferry service from Kawakawa Bay to Pine Harbour at 7am and three bus services - one to Thames and two to Papakura.
