The benefits of closing the gateway to the Far North are now being realised three weeks after Ngāti Kuri and Te Aupōuri installed checkpoints on the road in an effort to ward off the pandemic.
The 24-hour checkpoint on state highway one at Ngataki was up and running prior to the national lockdown.
Te Ao were allowed access to complete this report but were not to visit family or get out of our vehicle.
Lisa Everitt, of Te Aupōuri, says the community have been supportive of the measure.
"It's been a great thing, I absolutely take my hat off to the team here, for what they’ve done protecting everybody up home. Our lads, you just can’t go wrong with it. I think, yeah, absolutely superb," she says.
"People don’t know how good this is just seeing what's happening down the line. We’re not seeing that so I just I don't know how much to thank them."
"With the incidents we have had, we’ve had two. And they’ve been gotten and escorted completely out of Te Hapua and down to here," Sheridan Waitai, of Ngāti Kuri, says.
"So we’ve had to have a hard line. If we did let that in here we would be dead in the water because we have such an elderly (population) like our kaumātua and mokopuna."
Pereniki Conrad, of Te Aupouri, agrees. "We’ve had some challenges and that's with outside people trying to come through but its lockdown and we’re keeping our whānau safe."
The checkpoints are a work in tandem by Ngāti Kuri and Te Aupouri, with a northern checkpoint and a gate at Te Hapua and this southern checkpoint on state highway one at Ngataki.
"The privilege of being Ngāti Kuri, of being Te Aupouri, and being able to call out to our men to protect the mana of our ahi kā, it was really powerful and really humbling because everything we’ve done has been in a real hūmārie way," Waitai says.
"All in all, our people have been good, they’ve been really supportive of this kaupapa, especially our kaumātua and kuia back in the districts. We’re keeping them safe and that's it for us," Conrad says.
It is intended to maintain these checkpoints for the duration of the lockdown.
