Abbey Caves tragedy: Whangārei Boys’ High School student Karnin Petera remembered one year on

Andre Petera, Alicia Toki with son Jordan and a photo of their beloved Karnin, known as Tino. Photo / Jodi Bryant

A year ago on May 9, Alicia Toki and Andre Petera’s son Karnin Petera set off on a school caving trip, never to return. The Northland family has exclusively opened up to reporter Jodi Bryant to share memories of their beloved boy who lived his life to the full.

Alicia Toki scrolls through her phone album and stops on a photo taken in April last year.

Her two boys smile back at her. The photo is bittersweet, for while she’d captured a rare impromptu shot of her sons, she recalls immediately being overcome with an awful sensation that it would become someone’s funeral photo.

Tragically, that feeling was accurate.

Just weeks later her beloved baby, 15-year-old Karnin Ahorangi Petera, would never come home from the Whangārei school where his dad Andre Petera dropped him that morning.

Karnin was one of 15 Whangārei Boys’ High School (WBHS) students visiting Abbey Caves on an Outdoor Education trip that torrential day.

As the caves flooded, all but one student made it out.

Karnin Petera, whose nickname was Tino.

The news of the missing teenage boy gripped the nation as everyone waited.

More than 10 hours later, at 9pm, he was found by search and rescue but it was too late.

The family are limited in what they can say as WorkSafe is still investigating.

Police, however, have wrapped up their investigation and have said they are not laying charges.

But as the one-year anniversary of that dreadful day approaches, Karnin’s family would instead like to commemorate their boy’s jam-packed life.

“Tino lived life to the fullest,” says Alicia, referring to the nickname everyone knew Karnin by. “He was just non-stop, he didn’t like to sit still.”

“He had a broad range of music,” says Andre.

“He loved Bruno Mars, rap, but he was also into stuff that no kids his age would actually know, like [Johnny Cash’s] Burning Ring of Fire.”

Karnin loved his te reo, basketball, going to the gym, playing pool, board games, hanging out with friends. He also loved anything water-related; surfing, body boarding, diving, manus off the wharf or at Hikurangi lake.

Described as not having a bad word to say about anyone, Karnin’s euphemistic catch-phrase was “Kore te tahi”, meaning “not the one”.

Though, he did like to laugh at his mother’s attempts at te reo.

Whangārei-born Karnin attended Hora Hora Primary, Whangārei Intermediate School Te whānau o Waimirirangi (Māori immersion), then WBHS.

By the time he reached high school, he was fluent in te reo.

“He was a very confident speaker,” says his mum.

“He could stand up and mihi (formally greet) anywhere and he did. The only day I saw him get nervous was the first day at Boys’ High.

“Tino and (his friend) Liam were the first to ever mihi back (at the annual pōwhiri). They volunteered because that’s how strong their te reo was.”

He wasn’t a fan of school’s academic side.

“He didn’t see the point in a lot of it but he loved his Māori, PE and Outdoor Ed and he’d go there to see his friends and play basketball,” Alicia says.

“If we picked him up from town, he’d make us go the long way home past the Christian school to check the courts if anyone was there. Then he’d make us go home and get his basketball and he’d go back.”

Such was Karnin’s presence on the courts, the Renew School recruited him onto their team and he found himself playing against his own high school team on Wednesday nights.

“Tino had friends everywhere,” tells his dad.

“At the tangi, this one guy, about our age, said he met Tino at a haircut. Then, everywhere he saw him he was like, ‘Hey bro’. He said, ‘I loved your boy. He wasn’t shy or embarrassed to talk to an adult’.”

Home was shared by the family of four, including brother Jordan, 20, and their two dogs Stella and Starsky. Karnin could often be found at the house doing push-ups.

The last photo taken of the happy family altogether.

“He was bulking and watching his diet. He’d also go to City Fitness a lot. He was so focused on beating his brother.”

Karnin was also a clean-freak, Alicia laughs.

“He was always very particular. He was very relaxed and easy-going as a person but he liked things the way he liked things.

“His bed was always neat and tidy and he would say: ‘You’re not allowed to sit on my bed until you’ve had a shower’.”

Appearance was important to Karnin – his parents recall his fondness for wearing a suit and tie from a young age.

Last year, after Jordan left home, Karnin dressed up in his brother’s Barkers suit and sent him a selfie to wind him up. Now he is buried in it.

Jordan had only left home in March last year. Two months later, the house fell silent.

In August, Andre and Alicia moved down the road.

“It all got too much. It took us a month to dismantle his room, it was terrible,” says Andre.

They’ve set up one of the rooms in their new house just the way Karnin had it, where his mates Liam and Tucker still like to hang.

“I talk to him all the time,” says Alicia. “I can feel him around me.”

On the wall in their bedroom is a beautiful painting by local artist Flox of a fantail with its wings spread. Alicia gazes at it and weeps.

“As a mum, even though he’s not here, I still worried about him. And this just represented to us that he’s spread his wings, he’s on his journey on the other side and he’s OK,” she smiles through tears.

The fantail plays a big part in their grieving.

Whenever they or a family member visit the cemetery in the Hokianga where Karnin is buried, a fantail waits on the fence before following them over the hill and back, then perches on the fence and watches them leave.

Andre now has a fantail tattoo and Jordan, a tā moko (tattoo) for his brother.

Jordan has just returned home to the family fold, which his parents have been looking forward to. He is in Karnin’s room where his brother’s 14 pairs of Jordan shoes reside.

Alicia and Andre are enjoying having son Jordan back home. Photo / Jodi Bryant

Karnin had just purchased a pair of Travis Scott Jordan 1s online to add to his prized collection. His dad picked them up that day after dropping his son to school.

“I brought them home with me,” recalls Andre. Then he heard the news about the caving trip.

Alicia was working at her job at the hospital laundry and she’d had no access to what was going on in the outside world when Andre turned up.

The night before was the last time she saw her boy.

“He had concerns. We all had concerns about the weather for the past couple of days.”

The night before the trip, Alicia emailed the teacher to see if was still on. She was told ‘yes’, the boys would come in earlier and come out earlier.”

That same night, right on bedtime, Karnin asked his mum if the trip was going ahead and if he should go to school.

“I remember saying to him, ‘Don’t worry Tino, if it’s no good and not safe, they won’t let you go’. Then we said goodnight.”

That was their last conversation. The next morning, Alicia went to work and Karnin got up 15 minutes later. Andre recalls his boy being apprehensive as he set off for school.

Andre went to pick up the shoes, then sent a text.

“I actually said, ‘If you don’t want to go, don’t go’. He replied, ‘OK’.”

When Andre arrived at Alicia’s work, she recalled feeling nervous but “for some reason, as bad as it is, you never think it’s your kid”.

They headed to the caves, fear mounting as water rushed over Memorial Dr.

The parents were told to go to the school to await the boys’ return on the bus.

That was where Alicia and Andre were delivered the news - their boy hadn’t made it.

“I just lost the plot and dropped to the ground,” Andre says.

They took off straight back to the caves, parked at the cut-off barrier miles away and started walking.

“It goes downhill very quickly from there,” says Andre quietly. “It was a long night.”

Over the following hours as the search continued, Andre fainted multiple times and was taken to accident and emergency, where they rushed him through before he returned in a hospital gown, only to faint again.

“I was a mess, it was too much.”

Meanwhile, a shaking and drenched Alicia, still dressed in her short-sleeved work uniform, was only just holding it together when she heard talk of the search being called off for the night.

Emergency services during the search for Karnin at Abbey Caves. Photo / Michael Cunningham

“We wouldn’t have gone home until he was out. My dad had mapped out all the waterways of every possible passage he could be.”

Andre had just been re-dispatched in the ambulance when Alicia noticed one of the Search and Rescue (SAR) members standing nearby waiting to talk to her. They had found Karnin.

She breaks down.

“I felt relief he had been found but sadness that it was confirmed he had died. I hadn’t let myself start mourning until it was confirmed he hadn’t survived.”

Andre’s ambulance was called back to the site.

Because of extensive flooding, Jordan’s journey north was painstaking, with many roads closed. When he eventually arrived, karakia were performed.

Flowers left at the entrance to Abbey Caves in Whangarei following Karnin's death. Photo / Michael Craig

Thousands turned up for the tangi. Stella the dog howled for Karnin before climbing in the coffin and curling up next to him in his new brown, blue and white Travis Scott Jordan 1s.

He is buried beside his beloved nana who died only the year before.

Reminders are everywhere.

“It took us months before we stopped crying at the supermarket,” tells Andre.

“We’d round the corner and see the cocoa pops.”

“And the peanut butter,” says Alicia. “We were left with jars of it.”

Then there are the times the family ordered Dominos pizza.

They’d open the box of Hawaiian, Karnin’s favourite, and be hit with a fresh wave.

Home was full of memories, outside they faced the public and their questions.

The only reprieve was a trip to Queenstown with Jordan and Karnin’s photo.

“His picture comes with us everywhere we go, it gets a lot of mileage. And that was the first time we didn’t have the urge to go see him, we felt him there with us.”

The tragedy left the beach-loving family terrified of water.

The family would spend lots of time at the beach. Photo / Jodi Bryant

“We couldn’t even walk the [Hātea] loop. The waterways, they’re all connected and that’s what took him. We used to go up Parihaka but now I hate it, I can’t do anything near it,” says Alicia.

“Even when I drive past it, I act like it’s not there. We had to look at it the whole time we were there.

“I had huge PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder). For me, every time it rained and it was dark, it just took me straight back to the cave site again.”

One year on from his passing, the family are still not ready to have the unveiling, but, instead, plan to spend the day in private “just being with him”.

“I did regret that I didn’t spend enough time with him,” says Alicia.

“I had actually handed in my resignation and my last day was to be that Friday and Tino passed on the Tuesday. I wanted more time with the boys.

“When your child passes you do become a bit over-protective but I would say to not hold your kids back from living their life. I was really proud of Tino for living life to the fullest. He was who he was 100 per cent.”

Adds Andre: “Live life to the fullest, don’t hold back. Tino never held back and when it’s your time, it’s your time”.