The Waitotara River rose rapidly, cutting off Ngamatapōuri to all but the residents. Photo: RNZ / Robin Martin
The Waitotara River rose rapidly, cutting off Ngamatapōuri to all but the residents. Photo: RNZ / Robin Martin
By Robin Martin of RNZ
Torrential rain in Taranaki last week caused the upper reaches of the Waitōtara River to breach its banks, covering the Waitōtara Valley Rd in places with debris and silt.
While the flood was nowhere near as devastating as those in 2004 and 2015, the tinysettlement of Ngamatapōuri has been cut off to all but residents with four-wheel-drive vehicles and the entire road is closed down periodically for clearing work.
Waitōtara Valley Rd is recognised as the longest no-exit road in the country, snaking 55km from State Highway 3 to Ngamatapōuri where it splits into two unsealed tracks headed into the wilderness.
The 280mm of rain that fell in Taranaki caused the Waitōtara River to rise rapidly to 10.5m at Waitōtara Village, where it was being monitored closely in case evacuation was needed.
Waitotara Valley Rd, the country's longest no-exit road, is closed to non-residents until July 14. Photo: RNZ / Robin Martin
When RNZ visited, arborist Hayden Wildbore was leading a team clearing debris from Waitotara Bridge on the state highway.
“We’re setting up to clear the logjam that’s sitting under the bridge. I suppose it’s just jeopardising the structure of the bridge really: the amount of logs underneath it. It seems to have a lot of slash there and big pine and poplar trees all jammed up creating a dam.”
It was an involved task that occasionally meant closing the road.
“We’re going to have some aborists abseil off the bridge down onto it so that if it does get swept away they’re all tied in and safe and then we’ve got the crane here to lift the logs out and the digger to load the trucks and ship them out.”
Corrine Kawana, who had travelled down from Ngamatapouri to visit Whanganui, was not letting the disruption upset her.
“I’ve been up here 23 years, so this is about the third big flood – not the biggest – but major flood we’ve had. I just take it in my stride, no use worrying about, eh, that’s life.”
A small lake had formed on a freshly sown paddock. Photo: RNZ / Robin Martin
About 10km up the road, Sutton Waugh was clearing standing water from a paddock on land she and her husband had only owned for six months.
She wanted to graze cattle on the former forestry block.
“This has just come up from the last rain and has nowhere to go, so we’ve hired a mini-excavator to dig a trench and let the water out because we’ve just sown this. It’s new grass seed and it will just die, it will be drowned if we don’t get the water off pretty soon.”
Dianne Frewin shares her secret to being unbothered: it's preparedness. Photo: RNZ / Robin Martin
Dianne Frewin lives 35km up the valley and has done for most of her 69 years.
“Oh, to me it was just the same as normal, it wasn’t as bad as the 2015 flood because it wasn’t as high and it came in and we got the power back on about four hours later, so I’m pretty okay.”
“I’ve got a store room. I’ve got flour, I’ve got sugar, I’ve got all the basics that I need to live up here except milk. Usually, I have about six or eight 2-litre containers in the fridge and I’d just been to town because we were going to have a pig hunt competition, so I was fully stocked up.”
Frewin, who has scrapbooks filled with news clippings of similar floods, also has a generator and an internet-based phone connection for emergencies.
Scott and Julayne Thompson run sheep and beef at Rimunui Station, a couple of kilometres beyond where the road was closed to everyone but residents.
”Everyone up here, up the valley, is pretty well prepared," Scott said. “We’ve got generators, you know, and we don’t get two litres of milk at a time. You have some milk in the freezer or some powdered milk and just plenty of supplies, and, yup, a few candles and a pack of cards.”
He said driving on wet, silt-covered roads was not for the faint-hearted.
“It can be quite entertaining at times, but generally speaking if you’ve got four-wheel drive and you just take it easy, stick to the centre you’ll be pretty right.”
South Taranaki District Council has closed Waitotara Valley Rd to everyone except residents until July 14.
Residents will have to negotiate NZTA’s work clearing debris from the Waitotara River Bridge until Saturday.
