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Home / Sponsored Stories

Farmers hold feast for quake survivors

23 Feb, 2017 04:00 PM
Mark and Steph Hislop at their Kaikoura farm. Photo / Supplied.

Mark and Steph Hislop at their Kaikoura farm. Photo / Supplied.

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Not even the ravages of the Kaikoura earthquake could blunt good old Kiwi hospitality – how a Kaikoura family looked after 100 people fleeing the quake.

When Mark Hislop went to bed on November 13, he was a farmer. Within half an hour of the Kaikoura earthquake striking just after midnight, he was also a host to over 100 "refugees" from all over the world.

Hislop has farmed in Kaikoura for 37 years; he owns two dairy farms operated as separate businesses, with a total of 1600 cows.

But he went from farmer to philanthropist when the 7.8 magnitude quake struck: "Within half an hour, we heard traffic coming up the road. Everyone in Kaikoura had been told to evacuate camp grounds, motels and the like and get to higher ground - and we are 190m above sea level here."

There were about 100 anxious travellers from all manner of countries in all manner of cars, camper vans, vans and trucks.

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"The roads were blocked up, of course, so we waved people into the farm and let them park in a paddock. They stayed until daybreak and then many went in other directions.

"But a lot of them stayed for a week or more; the last ones left about 10 days after the quake. They had opted not to go back into the township because so much of the infrastructure was damaged.

"There were couples and kids from Canada, England, France, China - several Asian families, in fact - and a few Kiwis."

What happened next was archetypal New Zealand. Hislop and his wife set to work offering some good old rural hospitality.

"The people who stayed were reasonably self-contained," he says, "but they still needed food and fresh water. So they came up here for water and we got the barbecue out and cooked meals.

"One thing about being on a farm - there's generally plenty of food and water around. Luckily, the power hadn't been cut to our deep freeze and it was full of meat, so we turned to the barbecue. My wife's cousin was living in Kaikoura and he's a chef - and he helped cook up a feast.

"You know, in a crisis, you just get on and do things, don't you?"

Maybe so, but the Hislops were suffering their own discomforts. Their house was damaged though only to white label status (yellow and red labels refer to levels of damage preventing householders from living in the house).

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WATCH: The early risers of Kaikoura and the indomitable spirit of the community

One of the two milking sheds on the two farms was so badly damaged it could not be used and he had to pull down a $30,000 silo for health and safety reasons. His irrigation scheme is damaged and has to be fixed break by break, pipe by pipe. It looks as if it will be repaired too late to have much of an influence in the hot season.

Even more, the milking shed knocked out of action is causing long, long milking times.

Restricted even now to 1600 cows processed through a 42-a-side herringbone shed, Hislop's milking goes from 5am to 1.30pm every day.

The good news is that farming communities are traditionally adept at offering a helping hand and so it proved in Kaikoura.

Fonterra's deal with farmers means that, if the tankers can't pick up milk for whatever reason (including earthquakes), they will still pay the farmers. Hislop is grateful for that, though the long trek through the insurance system is still going on.

"I had an assessor here the other day; she told me there are still some claims from the Christchurch quakes still to be settled and now there're the Port Hills fires - it hasn't been a great time for this part of the world, has it?"

But, as he says, the quake meant "there was a lot of looking after others going on too. It wasn't just us - Fonterra and Federated Farmers helped hugely with a scheme to ferry in food and water to the area.

"There was an ex-Kaikoura person living down south who rustled up a lot of support and a heap of food and water were donated. Fixed wing planes and helicopters - at one stage it seemed every helicopter in New Zealand was here - ferried it all up here and my wife and a lot of farmers' wives got together, made lists of what various people needed, made up parcels and we delivered them."

Often in times of adversity, people bond so had Hislop heard from any of those who banded together on his farm for 7-10 days?

"We've heard twice from a couple from Canada we got friendly with," he says, "They've been in touch and people took emails and phone number and things but we haven't heard from anyone else."

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