The clean-up operation in the wake of Cyclone Gabrielle is quite extensive. All the dead wood, and much that isn’t, has been blown off the trees, and the shrubs and annuals have taken a beating. The lawns and drive are covered in debris and, on the top lawn, we find that two small dead trees have fallen from the forest and sprawled themselves across the grass. We set to with rakes, brushes, barrow and secateurs.
Meanwhile, having filled large containers with water, set up a camping gas ring and borrowed some portable USB chargers from Leon’s very helpful son, we’re ready for a long spell without basic services. With this outage affecting so few houses, we know we’re not a priority. So it’s with some surprise that we hear the fridge announce the return of our power supply. It plays a little tune, Adrian and I stare at each other in disbelief and then cheer and laugh. I celebrate with a load of washing and a hot shower.
The weather stays fine for most of the remaining week. There’s a thunder storm on Wednesday afternoon, but by morning, the sun is shining and a high pressure system settles over the island for several days. We return to Orokawa Bay and witness the frightening effect of the cyclone on the coast. Several enormous trees have pitched onto the beach taking metres of the bank with them. Their branches are already partly buried in the sand. The steeply stepped access from the beach to the cliff path that we climbed only a week ago has been obliterated. But on such a warm sunny day, it’s difficult to imagine the scene of a few days earlier; the strength of the wind that could fell those trees and bury them in sand so quickly. We take the path back to Waihi Beach where families are playing happily in the surf.
Back on Te Aroha mountain, some of the chickens have stopped laying, disturbed as we imagine, by the storms. But one day, when I walk over to let them out, I discover that all but three have released themselves. They can obviously fly over the high fence of their pen and I wonder if they might be making nests in the forest. Certainly, there’s little we can do if they are: the forest is extensive and has a tangle of thick undergrowth that could hide a small cow. And I’ve never been much good at egg hunts.
We spend our last days tidying the garden, writing, reading and making plans for the next phase of our travels. The weather remains dry and warm and the sunsets over the valley are stunning. It’s been an eventful two weeks and we’ve learned much about the New Zealand character. There’s the Civil Defence team who gave us tea and showers, filled our water containers and charged our phones; the random blokes in their 4WDs, looking for roads to unblock and mud slips to remove; the neighbourliness of local folk who have never before met us; the resourcefulness of all concerned. Then there’s the rapid retreat of everyone as soon as the crisis is over. Within hours of normal life resuming, the world has returned to that former state of keeping themselves once more to themselves.
