After watching a car float downriver, a lakeside lodge operator says she is “furious” local authorities did not close the eroding road despite their pleas.
Toni Glover, co-owner of the Kinloch Wilderness Retreat, which borders Lake Wakatipu in Otago, said the SUV became stuck on the public road next to the Dart River early on Saturday.
The occupants — two tourists — were able to get out of the vehicle safely, but they had to walk about half an hour to reach Kinloch and raise the alarm.
People from Kinloch headed back to the car to try to save it but were unable to, and it was carried off by the river about midday, as Glover videoed it go past.
The lodge is currently hosting the Green Party caucus, and people had been put in danger by the council’s slow response, Glover said.
She said Queenstown Lakes District Council had known the river was undercutting the road for at least two weeks, and while there had been plans to put rocks in place to help protect it, the lodge owners had been concerned the response was too slow.
They had contacted council again just hours before the incident, to let them know the problem was worsening, but were told by an engineer that the road would hold, she said.
“He said the road’s going to be fine – but if they’d checked it at first light this morning, this wouldn’t have happened to those poor Chinese guests.
“They were trying to drive down an open public road – they were driving at the side of the road the water wasn’t covering.
Glover estimated about 40 or 50 vehicles typically travelled the road on any day: “It’s a pretty heavily used country road.”
“The road was okay at 11 o’clock last night, but we’ve been worried about it for quite a while because [the river] was just digging into the road, undercutting it. It’s taken them all two weeks – till this afternoon to even get here.”
The lodge was now cut off by land, as it relied on access from the road, Glover said, but a local jetboat tour company had been helping to ferry visitors in and out.
RNZ has approached Queenstown Lakes District Council for comment.
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