Cyclone Gabrielle: Epic Wairoa horse trek and motorbike ride helps open up communities

Jon "Horse" Hohepa (left) and Tumanako Waiwai with Daisy. Hohepa rode for three hours on Daisy to reach heavy machinery that could help clear roads after Cyclone Gabrielle, while Waiwai rode a different route on his motorbike. Photo / Zach Wylde

Two lakeside locals in the Wairoa District took a unique journey by motorbike and by horseback through the devastation caused by Cyclone Gabrielle to open up their rural communities.

Jon “Horse”, Hohepa lives at Lake Kaitawa, near Lake Waikaremoana, with his partner and two children while his cousin Tumanako Waiwai lives in Tuai.

Access between Lake Waikaremoana and Wairoa along State Highway 38 was cut by slips, washouts, and flooding caused by Cyclone Gabrielle on the morning of February 14.

Hohepa and Waiwai both work for Wairoa civil construction company Quality Roading and Services (QRS) and they knew there was a loader in Ohuka Rd, about 30 kilometres away from them by normal roads, which could be used to open up the roads again.

The loader was impossible to reach by normal means, so Waiwai chose to use his motorbike while, separately, Horse opted for his pregnant mare.

“There was no way around to Ohuka Rd except by horseback so I chose Daisy,” Hohepa said.

Hohepa said he has had an affinity for horses and the back country throughout his life and his uncle had given him Daisy.

“I grew up with horses and in the bush, and I’ve worked on farms.”

He saddled Daisy up, tied a chainsaw on and said a karakia before he left.

“To the atua, for safety. It wasn’t raining that hard at the time but it was a mess everywhere.”

Hohepa described the scenes he saw during his and Daisy’s journey as “a complete mess”, but the mare managed to carry him over slips and around dropouts, with Hohepa chainsawing his way through fallen trees blocking their path.

“She was all good,” Hohepa said.

“She comes from the bush that one.”

They had a three-hour trek up along the skyline at the back of Piripaua before coming down by McDonald Rd and into Ohuka Rd.

Horse described it as “a sweet ride” and reckoned Daisy knew it was important to get to their destination.

“She just went for it and didn’t play up or anything. It was like she knew.”

Meanwhile, Waiwai arrived at Ohuka Rd on his motorbike around the same time through a different, albeit still rough, path.

“There were barely roads in certain sections,” Waiwai said.

Waiwai is a QRS site supervisor and skilled machinery operator, and he was able to get into the loader and start opening vital road links for whānau and the community.

The journey back to Tuai was normally 15 minutes, but he said it took him nearly four hours.

He said “It put a lot of hope back in the people” when locals saw the machine.

He and other QRS staff in the lakes area were able to begin pushing their way towards Wairoa the next day.

QRS operations manager Anthony O’Sullivan said in a statement that Hohepa and Waiwai’s attitude was a credit to QRS and exemplified the type of emergency response that can be achieved when locals help locals.

“The region is lucky to have staff like this – staff (and horses!) that want to do the best they can for their own communities,” O’Sullivan said.