One slip too many? Landslides raise questions about Ruby Bay road's future

Tuesday, 23 August 2022

Slip-affected Stafford Drive in Ruby Bay has been closed since a deluge hit the Nelson-Tasman region in August 2022. (video first published August 23)

Massive slips brought down during the storm last week have forced the closure of the former coastal highway at the Ruby Bay bluffs, about 26km west of Nelson.

A slip has also compromised the electricity supply to the popular McKee campground below the bluffs, prompting the Tasman District Council to announce its closure at 5pm on Monday and forcing camp dwellers in five vehicles and caretaker Rochelle Cook to leave.

Council communications and change manager Chris Choat said the slip was in an area of the reserve managed by the Department of Conservation.

The slip had caused a cable supplying electricity to the camp to be stretched tight and it was at risk of breaking.

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Cyclist Lindsay Cook checks out the damage from slips on Stafford Drive in Ruby Bay.

Electricity was needed to power the toilets and the sewerage system at the campground, Choat said.

Cook, who was packing on Tuesday, said the cable was under stress.

Caretaker since May 2019, Cook said she would take a “small holiday” while the campground was closed.

Slips have forced the closure of Stafford Dr at the Ruby Bay bluffs. A slip is also affecting a cable supplying electricity to the McKee domain campground, under the bluffs on the right of the photograph. The campground has also been closed.

“I do hope it will reopen because the community really love this place,” Cook said. “Last Sunday, over 300 people came walking through here; it has a nice feeling of community.”

After stopping his just-packed bus past the “road closed” signs outside the campground, Ricky Fowler said he was not sure where he would go.

Other campgrounds told him they did not take buses or had no space. He planned to travel to Motueka in the hope of finding a campground to take him.

“Other people are also displaced,” Fowler said. “The council have got to play it safe, that’s fair enough.”

Both Fowler and Cook said their thoughts were with the people in Nelson who had lost their homes in the storm.

Council transportation manager Jamie McPherson said a geotechnical assessment of the slips affecting Stafford Dr was to be made on Tuesday to determine if it was safe for a crew to clear the site and reopen the road or whether there was residual instability.

The largest slip has taken out a large chunk of the cliff.

If it was safe, the road could be cleared fairly quickly and “reopened in a matter of days or weeks”, McPherson said.

Now part of the popular Ruby Coast Scenic Route, the section of Stafford Dr above McKee domain used to be part of State Highway 60 between Māpua and Motueka.

However, Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency transferred responsibility for the road to the council in 2010 when the Ruby Bay bypass opened.

Ricky Fowler had to leave McKee Memorial Reserve after storms affected the power supply for toilet facilities.

The bluffs have a long history of slips. McPherson in 2017 said sea level rise or a massive slip may force the permanent closure of the road at that point.

Asked on Tuesday if the landslides last week could be that “massive slip”, McPherson said he would wait to see the results of the geotechnical assessment.

“It’s been dropping material for years,” he said. “Sometimes, after a major event, at least part of it finds new stability. It’s one site of many we’re grappling with.”

The McKee Memorial Reserve has been closed after its electricity supply was affected by the wild weather.

Māpua and Districts Community Association executive committee member Bruno Lemke said many people believed that once the road was transferred and no longer a main highway “it wasn't going to be there forever”.

“Most people that use it are tourists,” Lemke said. “I think it will be a cost thing.”

With climate change and the expectation of more extreme weather events, slips on the road “are probably going to happen again and again”.

Lemke said he would bring the matter up for discussion at a meeting of the association.

Tasman Area Community Association chairperson David Short said he had never seen so many slips on the bluffs and some appeared unstable.

Short said he could not speak for the wider community but from his personal point of view he wondered how long the road would remain viable.

“These kinds of events are going to keep happening,” he said.

“Climate change is catching up to us faster than anticipated.”

McKee domain was originally reserved as a forested area by the late Arthur McKee in 1921 and later transferred to the Crown. It comprises a scenic reserve, managed by DOC, and a recreation reserve, managed by the council. The campground is relatively cheap at $12 per person with youngsters under 16 free.

In February 2018, the campground was inundated by storm water and seawater when ex-Tropical Cyclone Fehi hit the Nelson-Tasman region. The damage was so great that at one stage the possibility was raised that the campground could close permanently. Its sewerage system had also been failing since the summer of 2016-17.

However, the decision was made to upgrade the sewerage and electrical systems as well as build swales to help handle storm water runoff and reopen the campground.