111. What happened to State Highway 35?

What happened to SH35? State Highway 35 (SH35) around the East Cape has been hit several times by severe weather, heavy rain, slips, and coastal erosion. Most recently, major storms in January 2026 caused large landslides, overslips, and damage both above and below the road, resulting in closures between Pōtaka, Hicks Bay, and Te Araroa. Crews spent weeks removing debris, repairing road surfaces, improving drainage, and stabilising slip sites before sections gradually reopened. Some of the worst damage occurred at: Punaruku, where a very large slip required removal of about 25,000 cubic metres of material. +1 Waikura, where an under-slip threatened the roadway and required retaining wall construction. Its in the pathway of cyclones, but lets go there anyway!! +1 The image we used is an AI-generated representation of the kind of coastal erosion and storm damage that SH35 can experience, but it is not an actual photograph of a specific SH35 damage site.