Cyclone-struck Waipukurau farmer gets surprise offer from the South Island

Di Murphy's Waipukurau farm did not escape the devastation wrought by Cyclone Gabrielle. Photo / Supplied

They say one good deed deserves another.

The thing is, Waipukurau farmer Di Murphy had long since forgotten about the donation of hay she made to a drought-stricken North Canterbury farmer more than 30 years ago.

It was 1992 and Hawke’s Bay truck driver, owner and operator Kevin Isaacson was planning a mercy dash to the South Island with a few loads of hay to help ease the drought.

“He was a lovely man. He was very much a solo driver. Had a truck and trailer. He contacted me. He said he was going to take a load of hay down to those poor unfortunates, have you got any?”

So Di’s place became a depot for donations.

“Baleage was not a thing in those days — they did hay. So people came and dropped off a few loads.”

There wasn’t enough to fill the truck so Di made up the difference from her own supplies.

“My son was about 8 or 9 and daughter about 16. It must have been holiday time because they were both here and anyway, they said ‘we’ll put a note in’ so Claire ran in the house and got some paper out and said ‘hope your cows enjoys this, hope your weather improves’ and all this sort of thing, signed all our names on it, stuffed it in a bottom bale. Away it went.”

It turns out the hay went to Bill Paterson who farmed McDonald Downs Station — an 11,333ha farm halfway between Christchurch and Hanmer Springs.

She said Kevin must have told Bill where the hay came from because he phoned a few days later to say thank you and to offer them a free holiday in his Marlborough Sounds bach.

“Well, my husband had just died the year before and we were not really in holiday mode or had any time to do anything like holidays so we never took him up on the offer.”

So that was that, until the day after Cyclone Gabrielle cut its destructive path through Hawke’s Bay, and there was a message on the phone from Paterson.

“He said you gave me some hay 30 years ago, would there be anything we could do to help you? It was virtually the day after the disaster and I got the message and just burst into tears. I honestly just could not believe it.

“I couldn’t have told you if you had asked me who was the man you gave the hay to, what his surname was or anything.”

She said he had kept the note all of those years.

“He said he was feeding the hay out and this piece of paper dropped out on the ground, he thought ‘oh, rubbish’, picked it up, put it in his pocket and when he got back to the house he looked at the piece of paper he had picked up off the ground and saw our names.

“He said he ironed the note and kept it. It’s mind-blowing really.”

Di said the farm is now leased and run by her son, with her daughter and son-in-law farming just up the road.

They had “not as much damage as other people” so she didn’t take Bill up on his offer of help.

“People lost houses, lost lives, lost all their vehicles and everything.

“But it was so kind of him. I was blown away.”

A creek at the back of Di Murphy's Waipukurau farm is covered in debris brought down by Cyclone Gabrielle floodwaters. Photo / Supplied

The cyclone did cause extensive damage to fences and destroyed restored wetland areas that had been something of a long-term labour of love for her son.

“It took all the native plants, the boundary fence, just all gone and that would be bloody depressing when you think of the hours of time that you put into it.”

A creek that waters her home block is completely covered in slash from forest areas further up the property, planted by a previous owner.

She said you can hear the creek bubbling away underneath but you can’t see it, and she’s not sure how they are going to get rid of the debris. More than a metre of floodwaters inundated the pump shed and destroyed the pump but the houses and other buildings on the farms were okay.

Her sense of humour hasn’t waned, though, and she is open to any and all suggestions about how to clear the creek.

“I thought of humans maybe with a chipper who could pull it out manually but when the assessor came, he thought it would be too dangerous. I didn’t think it was too dangerous.

“I’ve got a grandson who is at university and he is doing civil engineering and I asked him; now you modern-day civil engineers, you tell me how and he suggested wombats but they might be a little expensive or genetically modified eels that only ate wood.

“I said you are no good to me at all. But it is slightly more light-hearted than looking at the things and thinking ‘oh Jesus how are we going to get this out?’ But something will happen.”

She said she hasn’t even been to Hastings since the Cyclone because she didn’t want to see the devastation to her favourite areas.