The worst hit, Rick and Julia King of Middle Hill Station, lost everything except their will to keep farming.
“The fault line went right through all our infrastructure – sheep, cattle and deer yards, the woolshed, the cottage and our house – all damaged beyond repair.
“Geologists say it’s been the biggest land uplift ever recorded in the world,” Rick King told farmers on a field trip across the valley’s ravaged land as part of the high country farmers’ annual conference.
“There wasn’t much left really but what else were we to do. Farming is what we know.
“Land changed – flat land turned into hills, tracks and fences were covered by slips.
“We were cut off from everywhere, the helicopters were flying back and forwards but never stopped in to see if we were alive – eventually, after a few days they did come in with food and water.”
It would have been easy to walk away but the couple battled on and with massive help – the support of neighbours, the community and government – their farming has survived.
Two and half years on the deer shed, sheep and cattle yards and the woolshed are rebuilt, the property is refenced and new tracks are established. Just this month Rick and Julia moved into their new house.
“It really has been a hell of a couple of years but the help and support we got kept us positive,” he said.
“We’ve rebuilt everything bar a few fences. Everything is new and we are quite happy now.
“It really does makes you realise we are just ants on this land.”
Communication and access have been a huge lesson from that day of devastation, Waipapa sheep and beef farmer Ben Millton said.
“For 14 months we were the biggest cul-de-sac in New Zealand.
“We never went to Kaikoura or Christchurch for a year. The kids went up the road to Ward for school. We couldn’t get south.”
It was a bit of shock when he first surveyed the damage.
“Things weren’t looking too good. It was fortunate we had a bulldozer working on the property at the time. There was no way we could have got one in after the quake.”
Millton lost 150 sheep, a handful of cows and calves, 10km of fences and 3km of water pipe, a month out from weaning.
“The plus is we have better water pipelines now.”
The water table changed and land transformed and while it was a year before the land actually stopped moving he has fingers crossed things are stable now.
Access and a business interruption plan become really important, Millton said.
“Being able to get help in and get things done is crucial when you have livestock running free, no water and access is a real challenge.
“We were 14 months without a road. The only good thing about that was stock movement.
“We did have 100 people helping us in that first month or so. Without them we couldn’t have done it.”
The concern now is the next big rainfall.
“The river has jumped its channel and is now taking its own course. Our flats have got no protection.
“In a big flood the river can do 1500 cubic metres a second bank to bank and that could take us out. We’ve lost land before, now we are more vulnerable so that’s a real risk.
John Murray of Woodbank said lessons need to be learned from the inefficiencies of the recovery.
His Woodbank property and access has become increasing vulnerable to flooding.
“We have got major problems if we have another disaster like this in this country.
“There needs to be a review and there needs to be accountability.
“If the bureaucrats had listened earlier we could have had the river back in its original channel and we wouldn’t be at risk of losing more farmland and also a county road.”
A bridge was wiped out and will not be replaced.
“Now there is no cross-access over the river. Each side now has roads to nowhere.”
Farmers were offered the option of reinstating access but with a user-pays cost of $15m they baulked.
“It’s been a case of too many chiefs and not enough Indians.
“Farmers have adapted to transformed land and waterways and now just want to get on and farm and hope that lessons have been learned for the future,” Murray said.
