‘We would have been washed away’: Lucky escape for Dutch tourists when floods hit camp site
Monday, 26 January 2026
A Dutch couple holidaying on the remote East Cape say they are lucky to be alive, after the camp site they were staying at was completely destroyed by last week’s floods.
Sjaak van Unnik and his wife Hessel Mulder were in their cabin at the Te Araroa Holiday Park on Wednesday night when they suddenly heard a loud “roaring” sound.
“It was scary, we did not know what was going on,” van Unnik told Stuff from the Hinerupe Marae, where he and his wife have been sheltering.
However, by the next morning, he said it was clear what had caused the sound: a deluge of water, debris and landslides pouring down from the surrounding hills.
“One of the first things I realised was that we had been lucky, because if it had reached the camp where we were, we would have been washed away,” he said.
Their rental car was half under water by this point, so he and his wife were quickly evacuated from the site with just the clothes on their backs.
But when he returned the next day with a police escort to retrieve his wife’s medication, he said he saw the extent of the “devastation”.
“It was really bad. The whole road was covered with stones. And the river, well there was no river any more, the whole thing was clogged up with wood and stones,” he said.
“I read it had been described like a war zone, well, yes, it was like a war zone, it was that bad.”
Volunteer firefighter Byron Glover was holidaying with his family at the park on Wednesday night, when he too heard the loud roar of the deluge of water and debris.
“We knew we had hills around us. At that stage, we thought, yep, this is really serious now. The rumbling was slips happening in close proximity to us,” he said.
A first he only saw surface flooding at the camp, but after midnight, he checked outside again, and the site had “a river now flowing through”.
“The water had turned to more of a murky, muddy colour. So we knew that something bad’s really happened,” he said.
Despite his alarm, he said he decided to leave his kids sleeping to not “worry them”, and hunker down until morning.
“By then we saw the rapidness of the water had subsided to the point where we could comfortably and safely evacuate.”
Glover said his ordeal could have been much worse, he and his family were airlifted to safety shortly after another family of seven, who’d spent the night on the roof of their home to avoid being washed away.
He too was now staying at the Hinerupe Marae along with the Dutch couple, waiting to be evacuated from the area.
Van Unnik said the stay at the marae had been “wonderful” and like he was with “family”.
“I joked about gaining aunties and uncles, but we are really being treated as one of them,’ he said.
Stuff understands between 30 to 40 people have been sheltering at the marae since last week, with others staying at the Hinemaurea Marae in Hicks Bay, or with family and friends.
In a statement, Tairawhiti Civil Defence said those who had lost their homes and belongings were being “provided with shelter and awhi by community-led support.”
“The full impact and required support and resources are being assessed to ensure the communities received what they need,” it said. “Their normal will not be normal for them for a long time.”
There would also be two psychosocial workers on the ground in Hicks Bay and two in Te Araroa on Monday doing “needs assessments”.
“This is being very well received and means whānau in distress can access the help they need. There are a wide variety of concerns – money, insurance, or lack thereof,” it said.
Communication with the region was still difficult, with the loss of a fibre optic cable affecting the top of the East Cape.
“We have satellite communications operating as the back up until service is restored,” it said.
“Now that we have a clear run of weather we are getting support in place. This includes providing staff and people in to assist the teams on the ground with the coordination of the clean up and getting ready for recovery.”