The Waitirohia Culvert sign travelled more than 100 kilometres, as the bird flies, from Nuhaka to Awatoto before Cyclone Gabrielle hit. The mystery of how that happened still remains. Photo / Sera Terrill
The Waitirohia Culvert sign travelled more than 100 kilometres, as the bird flies, from Nuhaka to Awatoto before Cyclone Gabrielle hit. The mystery of how that happened still remains. Photo / Sera Terrill
The mystery behind a sign from the Nūhaka area found washed up more than 100 kilometres away has deepened now that Cyclone Gabrielle has been ruled out as the cause.
Sera Terrill was walking her dog along the shoreline at Awatoto on February 4 when she came across an odd sight.
“Before the floods, I walked my dog down there almost every day as he loves sniffing through all the driftwood and finding the most interestingly shaped stick,” Terrill said.
She noticed a bright yellow road sign lying amid some freshly washed-up piles of driftwood and debris.
The sign was a place she didn’t recognise, ‘Waitirohia Culvert’, a culvert off Nūhaka River Rd, Nūhaka, which is between Wairoa and Mahia.
She took a photo to remind herself to look up the location, but she did not know what happened to the sign after that until a few days ago when she saw another post about the sign asking where it had come from.
“It was great to see other people were interested in it,” she said.
“Obviously they thought it had been washed up from the floods but I wanted to let people know it had made its way there from a previous ‘storm’ which is why there was so much fresh driftwood!”
It is unknown how the Waka Kotahi sign from Nūhaka ended up at Awatoto, and it might be difficult to return with its home road still closed. Photo / Sera Terrill
A Wairoa District Council spokeswoman said the Waitirohia culvert and road had been completely washed out after Cyclone Gabrielle and Nūhaka River Rd remained closed due to slips and washouts up to the 2.5km mark.
She said it would be difficult to return the sign currently given the state of the roads.
Given the timing of when the sign was found at Awatoto, the spokeswoman said any number of things could have caused it to travel so far and they could have happened at any time.
She said it could have been carried away by the torrential rain that hit the district in March last year or could have even been intentionally broken and stolen.
“The sign could have washed down the Nūhaka River to the ocean and ended up at Awatoto,” the spokesperson said.
