Perhaps it’s inevitable that even two-and-a-half years after Cyclone Gabrielle, those affected worst by its destruction would still be talking about it. Head down to Hawke’s Bay and you can still see the scars on the landscape, the physical destruction to property, and the locals willingly mention it in conversation. Whether it’s as a victim of the destruction, a part of the recovery effort, or both, everyone has a story from that time. It’s still personal, present and raw.

For 43-year-old Rochelle Christiansen, it was the start of her journey to Galbraith Earth Movers.

“I’d been with Pan Pac on a log truck for eight years when the cyclone happened. My truck was drowned at the mill,” Rochelle explains. “At the time, my partner Matt Baxter was working for Richard and Lew Prince on a felling machine in the bush. We both ended up on local trucks that were involved in the recovery, but needed drivers. It was ‘Save the district’ – so we just hopped on anything that needed driving.”

With Rochelle out driving, Matt was roped into management until things began to settle down – dispatching up to 60 trucks and 80 people at the peak of the recovery, on his own. “It was a hell of a challenge. Typical dispatching – one of the most thankless jobs,” Matt comments.

Rochelle recalls the mood of the time. “We’d started dumping rocks to try to slow the water, and helping to open roads. Then we moved into Esk Valley. There were two older guys leaning on their ute by the school, and one of the guys looked up at me as I was driving past, just doing 10 or 15km/h as there was barely a road to drive on. I didn’t know whether to smile, wave, or do nothing … whatever I felt like doing felt insensitive. You could see they were absolutely broken.

“The first day I had off was eight days after. I just sat in the driveway and cried for about half an hour because of the amount of people we’d dealt with who just lost it all. We were fine, in town, with a roof over our head.”

Having driven trucks for about 14 years by this point, this was Rochelle’s first foray into driving a tip truck. But her story actually began in 1996, at the age of 16, on a dairy farm in Reporoa, after she had moved from her home in Whanganui. “By the time I left, 12 years later, I was farm managing. But doing that, you become a hermit. And the cold weather in Reporoa … it got to a point where I thought, ‘Why am I doing this?’ A friend of mine took me for a drive in their truck, and I thought, ‘This is a bit of me.’ I needed a change, so I went out and got my licences.”

Rochelle’s first driving job was with Great Lake Transport [then owned by Fletcher Transport, now owned by Booth’s] on a class 4 Mitsi doing general freight to Hamilton. With her trailer licence came an upgrade to a Scania and a new run that one could describe as ‘character building’…

“Each night, we’d pick up PBT’s and Toll’s bits and pieces. It could’ve been between two and 24 tonne, you never knew what needed to be collected … no mezz floor, freight from floor to roof. This was all at night when everybody was shut, forklifts were usually out of gas, gates were locked … and I had to get to Hamilton by 8am – I’d never get there on time!

“We’d then load up again to get back to Taupō by 6am. They were 14-hour days, but it was the best way to learn. I learnt how to strap everything, barrel strap drums, deal with DGs, loading and unloading … It was a really active job.”

Needing to move away from the night shift, Rochelle started driving for Ross Fitchett on his Post Haste International Eagle, which was a completely different scenario. “You’d go down to the boats, and before you’d even parked, your curtains would be open and you’re being unloaded. I’d get out and walk around the truck and they’re like, ‘Sweet, go home’. I had all this energy, was fit as anything from the years of farming.”

The monotony of the run combined with the frustration of Auckland traffic meant Rochelle would look for a new challenge within two years.

“The Fitchetts were very good to work for, and I left on good terms, but I discovered I’m not a set-run person. I’d also had enough of Auckland. It’s when the World Cup was on; you’d spend 3.5 hours on the motorway. Tell you what, if I knew about she-wees back then, I would’ve bought one!” she says with a laugh.

On that point, Rochelle shares her thoughts on being a female driver. “Yes, the lack of facilities can be a problem, but I don’t think you can expect too much. There’s not a lot of places to stop unless you go bush, so you have to manage it better; always stop at the Bombays even if you don’t need to go. And, honestly, to me, this is a man’s industry. So if you don’t like it, tough cookies,” she says, full of pragmatism.

The next move was back to Reporoa on a bulk truck with the team at Central Transport, where Rochelle would prove her might. “Peter Gleeson was my dispatcher. He’d never hired a female before, and he didn’t want to. Because I’d been dairy farming in Reporoa, it was the stock dispatchers who said, ‘Nah, she’ll be good.’ He was dubious, but it worked out well,” she says. “What an awesome job; I thoroughly enjoyed it. And working under Peter, when I left, he was retiring, and I didn’t want to work under anyone else.”

CTL then moved Rochelle down to Hawke’s Bay, as she again wanted to get away from the frigid Central North Island. But with Peter’s retirement, she sought another challenge. “I went for a ride in Alan Holschier’s log truck. I didn’t know logging, never sat in a logging truck, didn’t know one log from the next, but that was me – I love a good challenge.” Rochelle started on a Western Star for “big Al”, then moved onto Rob and Fiona Harper’s R620 Scania, both operating for Pan Pac.

“I didn’t know anybody, but I’ve made heaps of friends here through it. I had a lady get hold of me asking what it was like to be on a logging truck, and I said you have to put your head down and your bum up and just work, and they’ll take you under their wing. And they did, it was a great working environment and experience.”

By this point in the story, we’re back where we started with Rochelle driving a tip truck in the time after Cyclone Gabrielle.

“Over the cyclone, Matt dealt with Steve quite a bit, and he talked him into hiring me in August last year. Galbraiths didn’t need another driver at the time, but they took me on, and I’m very thankful to them for that and letting me pilot this new rig.

“My first impression, meeting Kelly-Anne in her office, she said to me, ‘We don’t just hire anybody; they have to fit our family.’ I thought, ‘That’s such a good start, what a first impression, really cool.’ I love the job.”

A career truckie with the likes of Raetihi’s Lilburn Transport, Matt’s glad Rochelle has made it with the Galbraith family. “They’re another Lilburns; a family operation that only employs good people, no halfwits.”