6 April 2017 - Whakatane Golf Club before the floodCaptures

When we arrived at Whakatane we saw how serious the flooding had been - the large tree outside Paul's place had fallen over to reveal rotten roots and a large hole of water. 

After the wonderful Paul had sorted our small water leak, we stopped over-night at nearby Whakatane Golf Club, which luckily was high above sea-level as the recent floods had devastated nearby Edgecumbe, and many of the fields were still underwater after the River had burst it's banks and overcome flood barriers. Apparently, the tragedy of this situation was no surprise to local residents as they had been aware of the weakness of the out-dated infrastructure for many years.

No surprises there, some of you will say. The failure of crucial infrastructure is a common story, as we are beginning to discover along our journey....

But the $10 per night site (power and showers included) was a superb place to overnight before heading down South again. 

Setting-up for the night - opposite the golf club...

View from the club house - beautiful weather after all the relentless rain that caused so much misery for locals.

It was only afterwards we heard more details being exposed about the flooding situation. And the high winds that came along the following day caused damage to Paul's workshop.

Captured from the caravan window: Dizzy on intensive cat-watching duty!