Hawke’s Bay’s stories of love through Cyclone Gabrielle: From attraction over the silt, to bonds tightened forever

Shani Eccles-Smith and Derek Bensemann found each other while they cleaned up their cyclone-struck friend's house, and romance bloomed. Photo / Paul Taylor

Hawke’s Bay’s Valentine’s Day was stolen away by a deluge of rain and silt, but amongst the mud and floodwaters were tales of true love and new love. Four months on from Cyclone Gabrielle, Napier chose to have a second go at celebrating the romantic occasion, so we put a callout for stories to celebrate. James Pocock reports.

Shani and Derek found a spark in the silt

Shani Eccles-Smith and Derek Bensemann’s relationship started with a wink and a muddy kiss.

They first met a week after Cyclone Gabrielle hit, covered in mud and digging through silt as they both chipped in to help Eccles-Smith’s friend and Derek’s workmate, Claire, clear up her flooded home in Esk Valley.

Eccles-Smith said they were working on different ends of the property when Derek and another person joked about her struggle to get through a patch of silt.

“These two jokers thought it was hilarious I couldn’t cut through it. I wasn’t getting very far at all and they got all the way up the path until they got to that clump and they couldn’t get through it either.”

Bensemann said Shani stood out to him in the muddy conditions because of her dyed pink hair.

“That was a bit of a standout, distinct pink hair and mud basically,” he said.

She said their friend Claire later tried to set the two of them up together.

“Claire messaged me and she said “oh, Derek thinks you are alright” and I said “which one was Derek?”,” she laughed.

They returned to do more work at the property the next weekend and had a beer at the Bayview pub afterwards.

“We are all sitting there and Derek comes ‘clomp, clomp’ up the steps, I turn around and he winks at me,” Eccles-Smith said.

“We ended up that day swapping numbers and arranging to catch up for dinner the next night.”

“We had an awkward, funny, muddy kiss that everyone else in the group missed, thank God.”

She said she had been single for about five years, while Bensemann had been single for a while when they met, and they quickly found they were very compatible.

“I had been on lots of horrible, red flaggy [sic] Tinder dates and kind of gave up,” she said.

“I never thought for a second when I was going out to Kmart to buy a hideous pair of pink, leopard print clearance gym tights to wear out in the mud that it would actually catch me a guy,” Eccles-Smith said.

“Everyone was on a level playing field out there,” Bensemann said.

They both learnt that they shared a similar outlook on life and core values as they got to know each other better.

“Shani has got an outgoing and bubbly personality and she has got a beautiful smile, lots of energy, that personality that gives off that good energetic vibe. Those are the kind of people that are good to be around,” Bensemann said.

“She has got a great group of buddies as well, we’ve met each other’s friends and they’re all real social people.”

“So far it feels like it has all been quite easy, it is not a battle uphill every day, it just seems to be falling into place nicely,” Eccles-Smith said.

Jade Price and Shae Lange’s unplanned anniversary

Jade Price and Shae Lange spent their fourth anniversary on Valentine's Day and the following day without power and isolated in their Eskdale home. Photo / Paul Taylor

Before the cyclone hit, Jade Price and Shae Lange had a romantic evening planned at Linden Estate Winery on February 14 celebrating Valentine’s Day and their fourth anniversary.

Dinner by candlelight turned into sandwiches by the glow of laptops and phones as the power cut off to their Esk Valley home and they were left with what was in the pantry.

“We got woken up at five in the morning by Civil Defence alerts on our phone saying that we need to evacuate and get to higher ground right then,” Price said.

“We opened our front door and the flood was just on our doorstep and for as far as we can see and silt everywhere. It was very, very scary.”

She said they were isolated and trapped in their property for two days with no phone service, internet or power until family members came and located them.

“[My mum] made her way through all of the police and that kind of stuff to try to get to our house, couldn’t get down there, so she parked at the top of the hill with my stepdad, jumped the fence of this big forest area and just hiked down through the forest,” Price said.

“We just saw her jumping over the fence [at the back of our property] and we were like ‘What the hell? Where did you come from?’”

They are back home again as their house was relatively undamaged, but they hadn’t had time to think about re-doing their Valentine’s Day yet.

“There is still [silt and] flood damage everywhere, we have a whole house that has floated down in front of our house and a few crushed-up cars that have floated down and are still stuck there,” Price said.

“It is our anniversary, so we would love to celebrate it again and hopefully in a bit more of a positive manner.”

Valentine's Day was one to remember for Margaret and Richard Smiley. Photo / Warren Buckland

A heroic act of love

Margaret Smiley says she doesn’t celebrate Valentine’s Day, but the 76-year-old still made a huge showing of love for her husband of 56 years, Richard, when she swam through rushing floodwaters to get help on February 14.

Margaret, who can only dog-paddle, made the decision to seek help for her husband, who cannot swim, when floodwaters were three feet from the rafter of the shed they had taken shelter in on their Puketapu property.

The couple were separated for about five hours during which Margaret feared the worst.

“I was staying with my brother and sister-in-law at the time and I did say to them that I thought Richard would have been gone by now,” she said.

“When they did rescue him, the water was up under his nose so that tells you he didn’t have much longer.”

She said it was “wonderful” when she first heard the news that Richard was safe at the evacuation centre at Tamatea Intermediate.

“My brother-in-law and I were going around looking for the evacuation centre and one of the neighbours walked in and said Richard is okay. That was the best moment of all.”

“It was lovely seeing him in the flesh later, but to actually hear he was alive was the best.”

While they don’t celebrate Valentine’s Day, their 56th wedding anniversary was in April and Margaret said they celebrated “in style”.

“We were offered a couple of nights at Porters Hotel, so we took that and that was nice.”

Pies with tomato sauce - a romantic Valentine’s dinner

A Kiwi classic by candlelight, pies cooked on the barbecue with tomato sauce, was how Rachel Tukiri and her husband their ninth wedding anniversary without power on February 14. Photo / Rachel Tukiri

Rachel Tukiri and her partner were stuck for Valentine’s dinner options after an evacuation from their Jervoistown home and a power cut still ongoing when they returned, but they came up with a practical solution.

“My hubby and I celebrated our ninth wedding anniversary on the 14th of February with pies that were kindly donated to us on the BBQ,” Tukiri said.

“Can’t beat a good old pie after a day of a scary evacuation and not knowing what we were going to go home to!”

James Pocock joined Hawke’s Bay Today in 2021 and writes breaking news and features, with a focus on the environment, local government and post-cyclone issues in the region. He has a keen interest in finding the bigger picture in research and making it more accessible to audiences. He lives in Napier. james.pocock@nzme.co.nz