Earthquake created unease
From the driver’s seat of his Hilux, farmer Dave Kelly surveys his land. Or, more precisely, an empty space where several million cubic metres of his land used to be.
November’s earthquake tore through his farm in the Leader Valley, triggering numerous landslides.The slip material dammed the Leader River, which flows through Kelly’s farm, leaving a kilometre-long backlog of water, christened ‘Lake Rebekah’, after Kelly’s wife.
The day after the earthquake, Kelly couldn’t get to 99 per cent of his 2000-hectare farm. A bulldozer had to clear tracks so he could get through and survey the damage.
Water supply pipes and fences were hit hardest. Kelly costed his uninsurable assets at about $600,000, and has so far had to find about $300,000 to keep the business afloat.
A water system of sorts is back up and running, although house water now arrives via a pump in the river that needs to be filled with petrol every day. There are several damaged houses on the property, and the shearers’ quarters, a lop-sided grain silo and the woolshed are out of commission. These are things you can withstand, Kelly says, just not indefinitely.
‘‘[Initially] the adrenalin’s flowing a bit because you’re absolutely desperate to get the most pressing thing fixed. And then you hit a bit of a wall where you’re just exhausted, where you’re mentally drained, financially drained, emotionally drained.
‘‘A year later you’re still walking the sheep 10 kays over to the neighbours [woolshed] for shearing.’’
The Kellys are far from alone. After the earthquake the Rural Support Trust (RST) organised emergency supplies and in December visited about 850 farms.
The earthquake struck at the tail-end of one of North Canterbury’s worst ever droughts. On one hand farmers had less stock to keep fed and watered, but it also compounded problems. Farmers in the driest areas were more worried about water than any earthquake damage, so steady rain this year couldn’t have come at a better time.
‘‘It’s such a relief to have some grass. You sort of forget that farming doesn’t have to be so painful.’’
The shores of Lake Rebekah have receded since November last year, and the water now flows over a terrace and cascades down several metres to resume its journey as the Leader River once more. A return of sorts to what used to be, but will never truly be again. ‘‘You get comfortable in a landscape. You get comfortable with how things look and how they function. It just created unease about what’s possible.’’