On The Up: Te Reinga bridge lift: Joy as community lifeline craned into place

The lifting and placement of the new Te Reinga Bridge in progress on Thursday. Photo / Supplied

Dozens of members of a northern Hawke’s Bay community spent a day in the sun watching a bridge.

Not just any bridge, though. This was the lifeline they’ve waited almost four years for.

Some arrived at the Te Reinga bridge site north of Wairoa as early as 7am on Thursday, watching as workmen prepared for the lifting of the 90m-long span and its eventual placement over the Wairoa River in the mid-afternoon.

“Yes, it was a long day,” said farmer Nukuhia Hadfield, who, like others in the community, has faced almost four years of disruption since the old bridge was damaged in flooding in March 2022.

It was able to be repaired to take light vehicles, with the heavy vehicles vital to the farming industry having to take a much longer and difficult alternative route.

But the bridge finally succumbed when a pier was washed out in Cyclone Gabrielle in February 2023, and the remaining structure was later demolished.

While the single-lane flat deck bridge with its arched support structure won’t be open to traffic until early in the new year, it had already brought the communities back together.

“We didn’t want to miss it,” she said. “There were probably about 70-odd people, a lot there first thing, 7am.

In place and ready to be bolted to the ground - the Te Reinga Bridge in place after four years of waiting for its remote rural communities north of Wairoa. Photo / Supplied

“It was actually nice to catch up with so many people from the community and others who have driven this project, and to be able to reflect on what has happened getting to this point.

“It did take a little while for them to do their checks and balances. But once they started it moved quite quickly, considering the size of the structure they were moving.

“It was great to watch and hopefully this one will last at least 50-100 years.”

It is thought to be at least the fourth bridge at the site, a vital link for the farming communities of Te Reinga, Ruakituri, Ohuka and Erepeti.

Thursday’s job was the first lift for a new Liebherr LR11000 Crawler Crane imported from South Korea by Christchurch-based Smith Crane and Construction, and is expected to be on its way by the end of next week to work on the Kaiwaikawe Wind Farm project near Dargaville.

Doug Laing is a senior Hawke’s Bay Today reporter based in Napier, with more than 50 years’ experience in journalism.