It may have been six years, but the ‘Wall of Waiau’ still stretches into the horizon like a colossal monument to the Kaikōura earthquake.
The fault line snakes across Woodchester Station in the Canterbury High Country like a scar, its banks towering three metres high.
For a long time, it was a symbol of misery, marking the exact point the quake ruptured.
But for Rebekah Kelly, it has become a point of “joy”.
“It's made me understand that I have a story to tell that people are interested in,” she said, welcoming 1News to her property with a smile.
“You can see footage of it, but actually once you're standing there, there's this reality of how powerful that earthquake really was.”
Rather than shy away from the carnage that upended her life, the station owner has started taking tours.
“From sharing stories and answering questions and showing what it is that you do, there's some pride that builds,” she said.
Her tours are one of many examples of the remarkable resilience of the residents of Waiau in North Canterbury over the last few years. The town of 250 people was just five kilometres from the epicentre of the Kaikōura quake in 2016.
“We probably lost around 30 houses that were no longer liveable, and also houses that also needed extensive repairs as well, so the housing shortage became a huge issue and people had to leave town because there was nowhere to live,” said Annie McLean, the chair of the Waiau Citizens Association.
“There definitely was a feeling that we had been a bit forgotten.”
The sudden loss of housing saw the local school’s roll nearly halve. Damage included the local pool, which was a point of pride in the town.
It has since been rebuilt in a massive $1.6 million dollar fundraising campaign, much to the delight of the local children.
A trust has also been established to offer low-cost housing in the hope of enticing people back. The positivity is having a major impact, with an influx of new students in 2023.
“We've got quite a few young ones coming in next year, so we've got a slightly growing roll,” said Catherine Ferguson, a teacher at Waiau School.
“Estimates are about 10 that we know of that are definitely coming – 5-year-olds - so that's a big intake for us.”
The secret seems to be in their positive attitude, with Annie McLean describing Waiau as the “best little town in New Zealand”.
“I think Waiau is such a resilient wee town and it's been very good at just saying, ‘well, that's happened, and now we just need to move forward and rebuild’, and I think that's what the town's done,” she said.
“We're little but we've got so much going on.”
Few can encapsulate that spirit better than Rebekah Kelly at Woodchester Station.
The quake wrecked $700,000 of damage to her family’s fencing and water systems and, after half a decade, their home is still earthquake damaged.
“Most of the water system and the fencing infrastructure was not insurable,” she said.
“It's not just like, right, ‘let's get that fixed next year’ and we'll carry on, you do have to do it piece by piece.”
The exhausting process of rebuilding and dealing with insurance companies has taken a toll.
“I just approach life with a smile, but at the moment I'm fighting the black dog. It's there, it's right there, and it's taken years for me to get to a point to where it's too much,” Kelly said.
“Which is kind of weird, it was too much at the start and then we had projects to do, and now it's all of a sudden too much again. And not earthquake stuff, but just life. In talking to people, and talking to therapists and stuff, it's totally all related.”
But every few weeks, she takes another tour group through the farm.
The enthusiastic farmer answers every question, and enjoys their shock as the enormous features – including a landslide – come into view.
“When I take them to the landslide dam it's always like, woah - that much land, that happened?” she said.
“There's a certain feeling of joy that comes from sharing stories.”
Her positivity is mirrored by many across Waiau, showing that sometimes life is what you make it.
The little town’s challenges only making it stronger.
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