Wheelbarrow access only
When Pam Ritchie and her husband returned from a weekend away, they had to take their luggage home in a wheelbarrow.
It’s what they do with the groceries too, ever since a big slip closed Karapoti Rd in the Akatarawa Valley beyond Upper Hutt.
Ritchie, who is 79, cannot use her car since the September 26 slip, and she has to walk more than 1.5 kilometres to meet any organised transport. Repairing the road enough to restore vehicle access is likely to take several more weeks, and cost about $250,000.
Ritchie’s neighbour Dianne McPhail is luckier – she lives on the ‘‘good side’’ of the slip. Neighbours have taken to parking their cars at her property overnight, and she has become a de facto rural postie, delivering mail by foot further up the road. ‘‘It is what it is,’’ she says. Ritchie’s husband Stuart dis- covered the slip early on the morning it happened, and was able to make his way out before the road fell away.
Ritchie, though, is reliant on neighbours, and takes comfort from having an emergency community network in place across the wider Akatarawa Valley.
‘‘People tend to help if there is a problem, and everyone has been supportive,’’ she said.
‘‘So I’ll email or phone and see if anybody is going to town. If not, I just have to wait for my husband to get home.’’
She and McPhail, both longtime residents of Karapoti Rd, said they were well aware their road was fragile, and had a history of slips.
Ritchie was there in 2005 when the bridge near the regional park was washed out, and McPhail remembered a ‘‘massive slip’’ in 2000.
She believed the latest incident was caused by extensive pine logging in the hills above the road.
‘‘It began last year, and we esti- mate we’re getting 60 per cent more water runoff. But I can’t confirm that, we’re not the experts.’’
The women are satisfied with Upper Hutt City Council’s efforts to organise repair work, and to keep residents informed.
And whatever the future holds, they will continue to love where they live, and will not consider moving away.
‘‘It’s absolutely stunning living here with all the bird life and the trees. It really is,’’ Ritchie said.