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The Paddison household in Kaipara Flats has been doing daily updates. From left, Alyssa, 7, Holly 12, and Hannah, 9.
When the country plunged into lockdown, people reacted in all the usual ways. Some rushed to the supermarkets to buy toilet paper and canned goods, and others lined up at petrol stations to fill up their jerry cans with fuel.
But while some were panic buying, others were quick to see the lighter side of lockdown. Geoff Upson pictured his dog George with a 12 pack of “mega roll” toilet paper priced at $200 on the Wellsford Buy & Sell page, available for contactless delivery. “No low ball offers – I know what I have,” he wrote.
The Omaha community page was satirically filled with residents asking about the traffic from Auckland. “It’s a bit slow because I’m towing the boat,” one resident responded. There were also acts of generosity. Staff at Warkworth Dominos decided to use up their ingredients by cooking up a batch of pizzas to feed staff at New World as they braced for the weeks ahead.
As the days have gone by, the community has attempted to make the best of it. Each day Mike Paddison has posted a picture in the Kaipara Flats Community Group of his three daughters with a sign counting down the days, each time with a different pose. They’ve received so much praise from local residents, the pressure is now on to maintain it for what could be a month or more of lockdown.
Others haven’t let lockdown stop them from making a political point. Followers of the Groundswell NZ protest group have been honking their horns each Friday at 12.30pm, much to the confusion of their neighbours.
Mangawhai’s Shaz Austin wanted to help out people in the community doing it tough. She bought three $50 vouchers from the Four Square in Mangawhai Heads and offered them on Facebook to anyone who might need them. But Shaz got more than she bargained for, when instead of asking for the vouchers, the community rallied behind her and donated a further 18 vouchers.
The supermarket has become a centre of daily life during lockdown but, for one elderly man, the supermarket was responsible for saving his life. A regular customer of the Maungaturoto Four Square, who is partially blind and known for walking long distances to do his shopping, collapsed on a table in the store. Fortunately, a member of the Kaiwaka Volunteer Fire Brigade was there and performed CPR, and successfully “revived him back to life”. Pamela Nattrass and her co-workers at the Four Square followed their first aid training and warmed the man up with a blanket and called in the local GP. The man is now recovering in Whangarei hospital. “We’re just glad that it happened in the shop and not out on the road somewhere, because there’s a lot less traffic around at the moment,” Pamela says.
Other remote locations have received more traffic than they ought to this week. A group of people in utes visited Manukapua Big Sand Island at Tapora to go fishing, and neighbours weren’t surprised when the vehicles got stuck in the sand. The renegade fishermen called in some mates to help them get out, who also got stuck. With six vehicles then left immobile, the group approached neighbouring residents for assistance, who justifiably declined. Ultimately, a tow vehicle from Warkworth had to come to pull them free. Sand Island has been closed off to all visitors
