Cyclone Gabrielle: Treasured farm sign ripped off by cyclone found 200km away

Dartmoor resident Sally Prins stands with her dog Gabby and the sign for Sudley Farm, which was returned earlier this month. Photo / Warren Buckland

If it weren’t for a small piece of timber swept up by Cyclone Gabrielle, new mates Susan Steele and Sally Prins would probably not have met.

And boy, do we all wish that piece of timber could talk.

This story starts, in some ways, on an August day as Steele checked on her stock by the banks of the Nūhaka River.

She spied a glimpse of white appeared under some debris from Cyclone Gabrielle in February. What could it be?

“We had been down to the river mouth after the cyclone because we can check stock along the riverbank,” she told Hawke’s Bay Today.

“We’d seen a few things previously, lots of wooden posts and railings, apple bins, and onions that had actually come up the river.”

But on this particular day, there was something different.

“We had a bit of a storm, so we think that might have uncovered it because we didn’t actually see it the first time. I picked it up and it was this sign.”

Eager to find out more about who owned the sign, she quickly took to social media and was inundated with replies.

Many recognised the sign, which belonged to a farm with rich history and memories in Dartmoor nearly 200km away.

Sally Prins and her family were the current owners of the farm.

“Sally recognised it as her sign. Lots of people offered to drop it off which was really lovely, but we really wanted to meet Sally and David and hear their story,” Steele said.

“They were pretty amazed where it had turned up.”

Prins, who was rescued from the roof of her property as floodwaters engulfed the farm during Cyclone Gabrielle, was surprised when people kept messaging her to say the sign had been found.

“It’s just one thing we didn’t really think about. You think ‘you’re never going to see that again anyway’ and just make another one. Now we don’t have to. It can talk, or we wish it could!”

As it turns out, Prins was planning to make the trip to Mahia this month anyway, so she arranged to meet Steele when they were there about a month after the post went out.

“Sally said, just hang on to it and we’ll meet you in Mahia,” Steele said.

Today, after a roughly 400km round trip, the sign sits at the front of the Sudley Farm as Sally works to get the place back up and running again.

While missing a couple of “grapes and sheep” that once adorned the sides, the striking white paint job still remains.

“It used to be on the other side of the fence, but we thought we’d change it and put it on the other side,” Prins said.

Both Prins and Steele kept in contact, with both planning to meet up next time Steele is in Mahia.

“It will be nice to catch up with Susan when we go to Mahia because she’s not that far away,” Prins said.

The return of the sign is only one of the small good things to come out of the cyclone. After losing all her animals in the floods, Prins has a new furry friend Gabby, named after the cyclone, to keep her company as she rebuilds.

It’s not the first time a sign has miraculously appeared in a distant location after Cyclone Gabrielle.

Eskdale Holiday Park owner Dan Gale had his sign returned after a crayfisherman up near Mahia had picked it up on his boat.

The Waitirohia Culvert sign from Nūhaka was also found washed up more than 100km away on Awatoto Beach in March.

Mitchell Hageman joined Hawke’s Bay Today in late January. From his Napier base, he writes regularly on social issues, arts and culture, and the community. He has a particular love for stories about ordinary people doing extraordinary things.