KEY POINTS:
Residents of Kawakawa Bay and Orere Pt east of Auckland are delighted their main link to the outside world is to reopen tomorrow, after 34 days of disruption from a massive landslip.
"Thank God it's over," said long-distance truck-driver Maurice White, after leaving his car with dozens of others at the top of Turei Hill for the final stages of his homeward trek to Kawakawa Bay yesterday afternoon, on foot past the slip and then by quad bike along the coast.
Word spread fast among the hundreds of residents of the two coastal communities after Manukau City Council said the road from Clevedon and Auckland would reopen - although only as a single lane to start with - at noon tomorrow.
That follows the dropping of 110 loads of water from helicopter monsoon buckets last week to bring down unstable earth over a slip covering 2ha of the hill above the main entrance to Kawakawa Bay.
Residents have faced 1 1/2-hour trips around the Firth of Thames coast to reach Auckland or complex arrangements involving stationing cars on each side of the slip and either walking between them or catching a four-wheel-drive shuttle up and down a steep farm track.
Mr White moved with his partner and 8-year-old son to his mother's home in Manurewa for the first week of the road closure, before deciding to return home and take his chances with alternative transport.
"It's made me a lot fitter," said Mr White, who has had to climb the hill in moonlight to reach his depot in Auckland to start work at midnight.
But fellow resident Rebecca Barrie said her partner was a fencing contractor who had to drive the long way round, as he was unwilling to leave his vehicle parked up the hill at night with his tools inside.
Their 9-year-old son had transferred permanently from Clevedon School to Orere School, which set up two temporary classrooms for about 40 children stranded by the slip.
Manukau City and the Auckland Regional Transport Authority have provided buses for schoolchildren and commuters between Orere Pt and Kawakawa Bay, as well as for shopping trips to Thames and the long way round to Auckland.
City council organisational performance director Robyn McCulloch said 20 or so commuters a day also took advantage of a free sea ferry to Pine Harbour, which is part of Auckland's regular public transport network. She said the council was keenly aware of the "huge dislocation" to the community and very pleased to be able to reopen the road earlier than expected.
"It has been a stressful time for residents and businesses - the council wants to thank them for their co-operation and patience."
Although cracks remained evident yesterday in a cliff face above the closed road, Ms McCulloch said the area of the landslip had remained stable since last week's water-sluicing operation.
A resident of one of six houses evacuated below or on the landslip, Janette Parkins, paid tribute to the Manukau council's management of the disruption - despite her disappointment at not being allowed back home even as the road was being reopened in front of it.
She had difficulty understanding how it could be safe for traffic to queue at lights to be installed outside her waterfront home, while officials remained fearful of the possibility of a landslip into the house itself.
Ms Parkins said that even if the Earthquake Commission decided her house should be flattened, she would rebuild it.
"I'll never move - it's a paradise spot here."
Ms McCulloch said her council had to listen to the advice of its professional experts, to retain the evacuation order over the houses, while working towards getting residents back home as soon as possible.
She said a barrier would remain at the centre of the road to protect traffic from minor slips, while engineers used avalanche-style monitoring equipment to watch for any more movement and worked on a longer-term solution over summer to allow both traffic lanes to reopen.
