Watch: Huge slip on State Highway 29 over Kaimai Range caught on video

A husband and wife caught a “pretty scary” moment on video when a huge slip fell onto the road as they were driving.

Nick Drysdale and his wife Anna were driving home from Hamilton to Tauranga over the Kaimai Range when a large slip fell onto the road just after McLaren Falls Rd between 3.30pm and 3.45pm on Sunday.

“It was obviously really wet, really rainy; there was sort of water streaming down a lot of the banks... I said to Anna about ten minutes before that happened that I’d never seen that before,” Drysdale said.

He said there was “bumper-to-bumper traffic” because everyone was driving reasonably slowly.

“And then we were about the sixth car in line, and ahead of us we saw what we thought was a tree fall down onto the road.

“And we thought, ‘S***, we’ve got a tree that’s going to block the road’, but it was only blocking half of our lane.”

Nick and Anna Drysdale were driving home to Tauranga over the Kaimai Range on Sunday when the incident happened. Photo / Megan Wilson

Drysdale said cars were moving slowly as they drove around the tree. Once they reached the front of the queue, the slip happened.

“I decided to quickly chuck it in reverse and back up a bit because I didn’t know how far it was going to extend out.

“And then that blocked, obviously, the southbound lane as well, so there was only the shoulder on the other side of the road. Luckily there wasn’t too much oncoming traffic at that stage, so we managed to just sneak around the other side.

“It was pretty scary for a second there, that’s for sure.”

Drysdale’s video showed the moment they approached the slip, as massive amounts of material flowed down onto the highway just in front of their vehicle.

His wife Anna can be heard saying “watch out... oh my God” as the slip rushes towards them.

Drysdale said the slip did not cause them any delays or cause damage to their car. They phoned the police to let them know about it.

“We didn’t get hit by anything - we were lucky in that regard. We were probably five to 10 metres away. But to be fair, if we’d been another five or 10m forward and trying to go around that tree and it had happened, we would’ve been in a little bit of trouble.”

He posted the video on Facebook, and someone commented saying traffic had backed up to Kaimai School pretty quickly, “which would have been a good five minutes down the road.”

“I can imagine it was bedlam after that.”

The slip was reported to Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency on Sunday afternoon and created long delays for travellers on State Highway 29.

The road was down to one lane, and reopened around midnight after contractors cleared the slip.

The stretch of road has been under the spotlight recently after a large pothole punctured the tyres of various vehicles last month.

Humid conditions brought thunderstorms to many areas of the North Island over the weekend, producing localised heavy rain and hail. MetService reported thousands of lightning strikes in the Bay of Plenty and Rotorua.

An Aongatete woman was left with a shattered glasshouse and a broken kitchen window after a small “tornado” hit her property just before 11am on Sunday.

Karyn Taylor’s 16-year-old daughter Gina looked out the window and noticed “leaves swirling above the trees”.

“We saw a tornado and just ran into the bedroom and got down on the ground away from the window,” Taylor said.

MetService has issued a heavy rain warning for the Bay of Plenty east of Ōpōtiki from 2pm tomorrow to 6am on Wednesday. Rain and thunderstorms are forecast.

Peak rates of 15 - 25mm/h and potentially even up to 35mm/h are possible during the downpours.

A strong wind watch has also been issued for the Bay of Plenty from 8pm tomorrow night to 6am on Wednesday. North to northwest winds may approach the strength of severe gales at times.

MetService meteorologist Lewis Ferris said it looked to be another “unsettled week of weather” with numerous bands of rain moving across the region from the west/northwest.

There was a potential for thunderstorms bringing isolated downpours and big wind gusts on Tuesday afternoon and evening, he said.

“There will be breaks in the rain, but it’ll be a struggle to squeeze in 24 hours of dry weather between bands. Blustery winds from the north and west will be present this week, too.”

Ferries said there were 1019 lightning strikes in the Bay of Plenty on Sunday, and 522 in Rotorua.

In Rotorua, there was 19.9mm of rain on Saturday and 18.5mm on Sunday. In Tauranga, there was 0.2mm on Saturday and 7.8mm on Sunday, and in Whakatāne there was 0.4mm of rain on Saturday and 2mm on Sunday.

Ferris said one station near “Adrenaline Forest” recorded 26.8mm of rain in one hour on Saturday evening.