Kelly Valk, 37, is a Mount Maunganui cosmetic tattooist who was diagnosed with stage 3C ovarian cancer in 2021. Photo / Andrew Warner
Bay of Plenty Times is looking back at the stories of 2022. Here’s what made headlines in October:
October 1:
Jenny Tait will do “anything” to keep her son alive.
She and her husband Peter are paying $396,000 per year to fund the “miracle drug” Trikafta for their 41-year-old son Isaac Tait who has cystic fibrosis.
But the “cruel and heartless” part is $52,000 of that is GST.
The Taits are speaking out against paying GST on it, after Tauranga man Paul Cherry called for GST to be removed from the price of cancer medications that are not publicly funded. Cherry has spent $212,000 so far on a drug that is helping him fight prostate cancer.
October 3:
Two years of free on-street parking in Tauranga’s city centre will end in December in a bid to encourage a higher turnover of car parks.
At a Tauranga City Council meeting, the commissioners unanimously voted to remove free on-street parking in the city centre “core area” from December 1. Parking will change from two hours of free parking to $1 per hour for the first two hours, then $5 per hour after that from 8am to 6pm Monday to Saturday (variable on-street charges).
From February next year, the charge will double to $2 per hour for the first two hours.
The core area encompasses the land between Harington St and Second Ave from Cameron to The Strand and Tauranga waterfront.
The council’s director of transport, Brendan Bisley, told the meeting the plan aimed to change the on-street parking to “high turnover customer-based” car parking.
October 4:
Seventy-eight-year-old Brian Parrott was in his Whangamata glasshouse getting in some spade work and tending to his crops when unsteady ground caused him to fall through a window and impale himself on a shard of glass, narrowly missing his heart and lungs.
The former pork pie salesman and butcher, originally from Nottingham in the UK, relocated down to Whangamata via Titirangi in Auckland eight years ago after retiring.
Brian featured in a Herald article in 1987, in which he described selling about 1500 pork pies from the butcher shop he started in 1973 after moving to New Zealand with his wife, Bernadette.
Fast-forward to October, and Brian was digging tomatoes when he fell through two panes of glass, “cutting his rib”. After pulling himself off the shard, he needed immediate help, and with blood pouring from his abdomen, Brian walked over to his neighbour’s house to raise the alarm and was greeted by an electrician from Pitcher Electrical, who was working at the house.
October 8:
Cancer nearly killed Kelly Valk, but she fought it and the cosmetic tattooist is now setting up a charity to help breast cancer survivors who can’t afford it get ‘mana enhancing’ nipple-areola tattoos after a mastectomy. Until her charity is registered, she’s offering the service for a koha.
When she’s standing naked in front of the mirror, the scar that runs from her pelvis to her stomach brings the “trauma” all back to the surface.
“Every single time, it takes me back there,” Kelly Valk (nee Pratt) says.
A cancer diagnosis hits like a sucker punch - there is no graceful acceptance. But for the lucky ones who survive it, you’re in a club with unmatched camaraderie.
October 17:
A Rotorua tourism operator says it was “really moving” to see busloads of cruise ship passengers arrive this weekend after a two-year hiatus.
Majestic Princess kicked off the Bay of Plenty’s summer cruise season on Saturday when she became the first international cruise ship to dock at Mount Maunganui since borders closed in 2020 for the Covid-19 pandemic.
The first of its 3500 passengers - there were also 1300 crew members on board - started disembarking near Salisbury Wharf* around 7am, and those who spoke to NZME were excited to be travelling again.
Harold Ilg, from Florida, United States, was the first person off the ship, but he had no idea of the significance of his footsteps.
Speaking with NZME at the dockside, Ilg was honoured to learn he was the first passenger after the hiatus.
“That’s terrific. I didn’t realise that, that’s pretty good.”
October 19:
The Crown’s application to appeal the home detention sentence passed down to teen rapist Jayden Meyer was declined but the High Court gave a scathing review of how the case was handled.
In a judgment, High Court Justice Sally Fitzgerald deemed the sentence Meyer received was “manifestly inadequate”, but “in the unique circumstances of this case, the interests of justice are best served by declining the Crown’s application.”
Fitzgerald also concluded the sentencing process “lacked transparency”, which undermines public confidence in the justice system.
October 22:
A bereaved family said their grief had been reignited after authorities removed their 19-year-old memorial seat on Mauao without telling them.
Adrian Shuen died in 2003 after a heart attack at work at Bakels in Mount Maunganui. He was 31 and left behind a wife and two children. On the first anniversary of his death, his widow and family arranged and paid for a memorial seat and plaque to be installed on Mauao’s base track overlooking the ocean.
Since then, it has been used by family and friends at least once a week as a place of love, comfort, peace and reflection.
Nineteen years later, in October, his widow Nicky Sowerby visited the seat again but it was gone.
October 26:
Alone, wading through shin-deep volcanic ash with each breath burning his airways, Mark Law had no idea whether the volcano crater he’d just landed on would erupt again.
On October 26, the Kāhu NZ chief executive wa bestowed with one of New Zealand’s highest bravery awards – the New Zealand Bravery Star.Law is one of eight people named in the 2022 Special Honours List, the New Zealand Bravery Awards.
Seven, including Law, have been recognised for their selfless heroism during the chaos of the Whakaari/White Island tragedy. The eighth awardee saved the life of a fellow soldier after a grenade misthrow.
The star is the country’s second-highest bravery award next to the New Zealand Cross. It is awarded to a person who displays “an act of outstanding bravery in a situation of danger”.
Two helicopters were sent to the scene.