Stargazing trip fatal for tourist on honeymoon
Driver dies when rental van crashes head- first into ditch on narrow country road
A decision to take in Wairarapa stars proved fatal for a young honeymooner.
Police have confirmed 29- year- old American Douglas Dietz from Alexandria, Virginia died when his rental vehicle left a Martinborough rural road on Thursday morning.
He had not been wearing a seatbelt.
Acting Senior Sergeant Richie Day said the man left a hotel between 8pm and 9pm on Wednesday night to go and look at the stars.
His wife reported him missing to police at 3am and the vehicle was discovered later that morning.
Day said the Serious Crash Unit investigation was continuing.
Tourists visiting the area are often directed to Shooting Butts Rd at the eastern end of Dublin St, where there is the Rapaki Hillside Walk.
South Wairarapa mayor Adrienne Staples said the situation was a tragedy.
“We’re extremely upset that something like this should happen in our district.
“I wouldn’t want anybody to have this happen to them, but to be a visitor, and a visitor on their honeymoon, it makes it even worse.”
A spokeswoman from the United States Embassy said they were working closely with the family on arrangements “during this difficult time”.
“But for privacy reasons we are not able to share any more details.”
The man’s wrecked rental vehicle was discovered nose- first in a ditch on Shooting Butts Rd just after 7am.
The man’s wife is being assisted by Victim Support in Wellington.
A woman who lives in a property close to the crash scene said the gravel road was dangerous and narrow.
Emergency services were called when a passing motorist discovered the Jucy rentals Toyota Estima.
Wairarapa Police Area Commander Donna Howard said the man was visiting New Zealand with his wife.
Howard said the crash involved just one vehicle and the man was dead when emergency services arrived.
At the crash site, paint dots marked the tyre tracks of the rental, which appears to have veered to the right on to a grass berm and crashed into the drain culvert, about halfway along the road.
The owner of a nearby Shooting Butts Rd property said her husband got up about 3am to make a cup of tea.
“When he came back to bed he said ‘ what’s that funny noise — is it rain?’,” said the woman, who did not want to be named.
“Now I’m thinking perhaps it was the horn of the vehicle going.”
The woman said she could see fire crews from her house.
Her teenage granddaughter said she and her grandfather went to check on the sheep and saw the crashed vehicle up close.
“It was nose down, it had fallen into a ditch and it was pointing straight up.”
The woman said the rural road was dangerous and narrow.
“It’s really only a one- way road. There’s pot holes and a twist in it, and at the edge of it they have dug a channel for drainage.
“When there’s long grass there of course you can’t see it. We know it’s there but anybody not familiar with it wouldn’t. “It’s very sad,” she said. South Wairarapa District Council infrastructure and services manager Mark Allingham said the road was commonly used by locals as a shortcut to Martinborough from Tuturumuri.
This was the first crash on the road that he was aware of.
“The speed limit is 100km/ h but that’s not really suitable,” he said.
“People try and drive on dirt roads the same as they would on a sealed road but they need to drive to the conditions.”
I wouldn’t want anybody to have this happen to them, but to be a visitor, and a visitor on their honeymoon, it makes it even worse. Adrienne Staples, mayor