Boat delivers groceries across flood

Summer Pomana and uncle Turi Pou make their way through floodwaters after tying their boat up to the Omaunu Rd bridge. Photo / Peter de Graaf

Kaeo residents were taking the latest flood in their stride.

Locals either hunkered down at home or swapped their cars for boats.

Turi Pou was using a dinghy with outboard motor to shuttle family members across what is usually farmland. Mr Pou lives in town but his sister and other family members live on the other side of the river.

Yesterday he was using his boat to deliver groceries and collect his niece Summer Pomana, tying his boat up between trips to the railing of what is usually a road bridge.

They were unfazed by the flood, a regular occurrence on Omaunu Rd, and were enjoying boating above the paddocks.

Ms Pomana, who now lives in Tauranga, said it brought back childhood memories of swimming into town during floods.

State Highway 10 was closed to all traffic just north of the Whangaroa Bridge at 10.30am yesterday and the road between Kaeo and the bridge was passable only to trucks and four-wheel-drives, but the township itself was still dry by edition time yesterday apart from the odd patch of surface flooding.

The same could not be said for Omaunu Rd, which was closed at high tide on Saturday night and was under more than a metre of water in places yesterday.