Little respite for Wairoa

Wairoa mayor Craig Little, a sheep and beef farmer, says the rain hasn’t stopped, the land hasn’t stopped slipping and some people in rural areas still don’t have proper access to Wairoa.

Wairoa bore the brunt of Cyclone Gabrielle and was physically isolated from the rest of the country for weeks, with the roads north and south of the town cut by slips and downed bridges.

Worse still, all power and telecommunications were wiped out for days on end, and more than 100 homes in the town were flooded.

However, six months on, while some sort of order has been achieved, major problems still exist – including road access.

“The farming settlement of Papuni, about 60km inland from Wairoa, is still without proper road access that can take large trucks. There is a slip there that is as big as the Manawatū Gorge and the land is still moving,” Little told Rural News.

“The only way they have been able to get their stock out is to take them overland through neighbouring properties, which is difficult and stressful.”

According to Little, a trip to Wairoa from Papuni would normally take about half an hour, but it’s now taking them two-and-a-half hours. The slip at Papuni can’t be repaired at present because the hillside is still moving and it is too dangerous for contractors to work on the site. Even the normal trip from Wairoa to Napier is taking much longer.

Little adds that a trip that once took him an hour and half is now taking two and half hours because of all the road works.

He says it was always a dangerous stretch of road but is now even more dangerous.

“This is all so depressing and it affects you emotionally,” he says.

“We have a huge attachment to the land and it’s not nice going around the farm. On my farm even the hillsides are pugging up, which I’ve never seen before. Trying to move stock around is a nightmare because so many fences are down and tracks destroyed.”

On top of having to deal with the ongoing rain, slips and damage to his farm, Little and other farmers are being hit by the sudden, rapid fall in lamb and beef prices. He says some farmers are quitting stock early while others wait, hoping for better prices which simply haven’t come.

On farm costs are also ratcheting up.

“I’ve got a mate who’s now a stock agent but who sold his farm before Gabrielle.

“He told me that his job as a stock agent is now turning into that of a counsellor because farmers are just so stressed.”