Video Transcript:
We as Māori never own the land. We are just the (caretaker) kaitiaki of a tā te whenua (our land). And the proverb goes, Ko au te whenua, ko te whenua ko au. I am the land, the land is me. We look after the land, the land will always look after us.
Tom: Chur my bro!
Zed: Hey, Tom. How's it going, man?
Tom: Too good, cuz.
Zed: Good to see you.
Tom: Likewise bro!
Ethan: Very nice to see you, Tom.
Tom: Likewise my bro!
Zed: Solar still going strong?
Tom: Oh, mate. Can't complain, cuz! Six plus years and - pumping! Still going, ay. Solid as a rock. Yeah. Solid as a rock.
Ethan: Nice, looks beautiful. Yeah.
Tom: We purposely put it on like this because didn't want to really get on the roof and wash it.
Ethan: Yeah, yeah.
Tom: So down here, we could just get the water blast and boom, boom. And she's all clean.
Zed: Much easier, ay.
Tom: Yeah, much easy bro. Yeah.
Zed: What's the best thing you like about it?
Tom: Best thing I like about it is that I could see what's happening with the panels. You know, I know that nothing's broken. I can actually drive away. We can mow the lawns. Nothing's going to get thrown up. It might go under it, but, yeah. Good thing about it is that it’s out the road. For me it's out the road,
but it's catching that good fella upstairs.
Zed: Oh, yeah.
Ethan: The guy upstairs, yeah!
Tom: Yeah, you gotta look after that bugger.
Tom: Kia ora, my name is Tom Dewes.
Tom: I live here in Ruatoria, on the East Coast, with my wife, Maudi. And, our children, young teenagers these days. And, so we've been totally living off-grid, up the coast here for about 20 years. Decided to come home. My parents were getting a little bit older, so I wanted to bring our our kids home. Our children home, so they get to know the nanny and papa. Because mom and dad were yeah starting to age, and I was pretty scared that our kids get lost to the cities.
So born and bred on the coast here, I wanted to bring them home and also get back to their roots.
I've been brought up by my parents - Manaaki Tāngata. Manaaki Tāngata in English simply means, you look after the people that come into your home.
We have an open door home. Māori people are a friendly race. They will take the shirts off their backs for you. They will feed you when this is our home. You got to feel like it's your home as well. How we do that? You sit down, have a cup of tea, You sit down and you'll feel the warmth that we can. And that's us. All we do is Manaaki and give it to you, home is home.
On behalf of our family here, our whānau. Just thank you guys for being here today. Being here with us is awesome. And it's lovely to have you guys. You know where we are. You know where we live. Our home is always open when we open home, man. We’re open home. Like I said, Manaaki Tānga is us. Thank you.
Ethan: Awesome.
Sol: Thank you for having us. Thank you.
Tom: You're so welcome. So welcome. Babe, mā hui Karakia nē? (Babe, can you do a blessing for us?)
Aw yeah okay!
E hoa
(My friends)
Whakapainga ēnei Kai
(Bless this food)
Hei oranga mō ō mātou Tinana
(For the goodness of our bodies)
whāngaia hoki ō mātou, wairua ki te taro o te ora
(Feeding our spiritual needs also with the bread of life)
Ko Ihu Karaiti tō mātou Kaiwhakaora
(Jesus Christ, our lord and saviour)
Amine
(Amen)
Tom: Kia ora!
(Be well!)
Zed: Ka pai!
(Good)
Tom: So grab a plate. [Laughter] Ka pai (good). Grab a plate, grab a bread, and just make a sandwich or whatever you want to do.
We built our own home. Myself, my wife decided to draw a plan, and got the house pretty much finalised through a friend of ours and Gisborne and started building our home.
We were running off a generator for five, six years. And that soon added up in terms of the cost to run it.
It was pretty cheap when we first started, but as the years got on, everything started to go up. Price wise, we noticed that was was really costing us, big time! Travel through to Gisborne. Every time we went to Gisborne, we used to take our petrol cans with us.
We decided to look around at other options for power. I made contact with the local power board, to look at a transformer to install on the post, which is only about 120m away from home here.
We were looking at around 20K and I said to the guy, mate I just want to put a cord in the ground not have shares is in your business. I said that's, that's over the top!
He said well that's the cost.
And I said nah, I'm not interested. So we started looking at solar.
Had a couple of friends who were already on solar. And I asked them, you know,
how was that working? They said, well, yeah, it's not too bad, but we finding that the system that we've got, we've bought from one company, the other battery banks, we've had to bought for another company as well. So there were, you know, bits and pieces and I didn't like the sound of that.
So I started to just inquire and look, go online and start looking around. So I found GridFree, Auckland. Had a look at their website, and thought sh**, this is exactly the guys I need to talk to, made a phone call and, we haven't looked back.
Zed: And you have the inverters and charge controllers?
Tom: I’ve put everything in the garage, my bro. Come in, come in. This is where I put it. Out of the road. Just built a shelf down the bottom, had our battery banks all out of sight, out of mind. Yep. And then I just put fuses up on the back wall there.
It just keeps everything nice and simple. And you know, that runs the whole house. And, you haven't had an issue with it, man. It's every morning I just get up, that's what this is for because these things are on the road, and I just push that.
Oh!
[Laughter]
And I can see exactly what what's happening with our batteries. Yeah. It tells me exactly what the kids have been doing last night. Whether they've been on the on the gadgets or whatever they're doing. The batteries will actually indicate to me how much usage has been happening. Yep, yep. So that's basically what I've been doing. You know how charged the system is in the morning if you need to. I need to get them off the power in the morning? Yup, we a conversation. Hey, who was last last night staying on too late or too long, right?
Ethan: Yeah, yeah.
Tom: That there is an indication on what's happening with our system.
Ethan: Perfect. Yeah.
Tom: So easy - too bloody easy.
Ethan: That's good. Good to hear. Yeah.
Tom: And then if whatever reason, the system is really running low, I just turn it off, and I just normally just plug it into the generator. Winter time, yes - we would the geny. Summer time, mate? Not a problem, it’s not even an issue? With having our solar system and what we've got here now? It's it's a peace of mind. It's totally peace of mind. When we are locked in, rain wise, sometimes, the solar basically runs out of batteries. And if we're locked in, we haven't got petrol. So that actually gets me ticking over because we've got our fridge freezers to run. We've got quite a few things that are dependent on having power, of course. So having that solar mate, bloody peace of mind.
Running the generator, we saw two costs incurred that's the petrol cost, maintenance cost. And they far outweighed the cost of looking long term at solar. Hence why we went to solar. GridFree? You can't beat it! It's the backup support. It's a phone call away. I'm not having to go through someone down across bloody overseas. We're a phone call away. And it's instant response. So the backup is is unbelievable. I’ve never found that with a supplier.
The only challenge we had was you got to change your mindset. In terms of what you're using, how you're using things you wouldn't run the the jug and the toaster at the same time. They’re the big draws. We've changed pretty much 99% of our services be it fridge freezer or stoves to more energy efficiency. So when I go to look at something that I buy, I look at how many stars they are. And I also tell the guys that we're off grid, what can you offer me? The only thing we do not use is a microwave. Why? Because it's a big draw. So it's about mindset. Changing your mindset and knowing what your product is at home, what you've got, whether your system is going to cater for you.
All that information you feed back to the guys at GridFree, and they will give you the best deal or package that suits the individual.That's how I worked.
Maudi started doing her cheese and did her classes learning the technique and art of making, feta cheese. Because we were on the land, we had goats, we were milking.
Back home here, you've got to create your own income, because the main source of income for a lot of people is forestry. So we had an opportunity and we looked at it. Maudi started doing her cheese in the family kitchen. And then that meant that we had to come outside and eat because of the cross-contamination of, smells, with, with food. So, I was over sitting at a side having dinner, so I said to more, I'll build your own Commercial kitchen.
So with, numbers that she's got, she's able to handle that load. Does she want more? I would love it to have more, so I can retire... nah! But yeah, it's it's her calling. She loves what she's doing, and she's good at it.
Tom: Come in bro.
Zed: Oh thanks, Tom.
Tom: So this is Maudi's, little Kitchen, hideaway.
Zed: Yeah, it’s really clean!
Tom: She's got her own logo, which is a, Totaranui Wheta, she designed it herself.
Tom: So basically, what she does in here, bro. Is she does, stuffed bell peppers.
Zed: Yeah.
Tom: Everything's done in here. The system we've installed in here is the hybrid system.
Zed: Yeah.
Tom: And, so what that does is that it runs her heat pump, so sometimes in the morning, it's cold - wintertime. She heats her room up. So it's nice and warm, summer time she has to actually have a certain, temperature for, the cheese so she can cool it down.
This here is a beauty!
Honestly, I went into, Noel Leeming and I said to the guy, I'm looking to upgrade our, fridge freezes to more power efficiency.
Zed: Of course.
Tom: He said, why’s that? I said because we're off-grid.
Zed: Yeah.
I said, we’ve got a, we run off solar. He said, we've just got a new fridge that's just come in one, two, three, four , five, six, seven.
Zed: Seven!
Tom: I said, bullshit. You're kidding me.
Zed: Seven stars? Wow.
Tom: Seven, bro.
Tom: I said, I’ve never seen anything?
Zed: oh, I can see,
Zed: Only 187 kilowatt hours a year, that's half a kilowatt hour a day.
Tom: Exactly mate. And I said, show me, showed me. And I said, how many you got? And he said, two. And I said, I'll take them. We bought them and honestly unbelievable. So we've changed it, you know, to cater for your needs with the battery.
Zed: It’s full sized fridge-freezer as well, one of the best I’ve seen, with the energy consumption.
Tom: And that’s basically - we had to install a kitchen, everything is supposed to be stainless steel. And what she's doing here.
This is a raw cheese at the moment. So what's happening here is that the draining. And she turns these over every three hours and drains all the fluid out of it. Once they’re drained, she actually starts to cut them.
And so the finish, basically the finished product is here. So she has her own brine. She makes up her own brine. So the cheese, because that's got no taste in it at the moment. And it's the brine that permeates
through that, through flavours it. And honestly - beautiful.
So that's the finished product.
We're trialling out actually this packaging to send because a lot of people who are up in Auckland, Wellington want to feta cheese all her stuff, bell peppers. We tried sending it like this and it started to leak. So we're looking at packaging and this here seems to be ticking all the boxes. So that's basically her little
‘bizzo’ up the coast here.
Zed: Yeah.
With what's happening globally.
Environment, the seasons, everything is changing. And that impacts on us as people. Us as a iwi. How we relate to each other. The moon phases,
you know, we were brought up a great believer in the moon phases
because the moon tells us when to plant, when, go fishing, when to go eeling, food gathering. We're all governed by the moon phases, natural elements, really destroyed. So we're in big trouble.
Look at what's happening with all the flooding, all the fires over in the Antarctic.
You know, it impacts on us as big time. How do we actually have a little input
into improving that? Is stop what we're doing. Is to be self-sufficient.
I mean, look at the power companies. They're killing us. Killing people in terms of the lines are running. You look at Auckland, the lines are running through kōhanga reo (nurseries). And that affect of, you know, all the energy that's running above our children's playgrounds. That's got to take an effect on the kids. Yep, it's scary. But, how we can help is doing what we, we've doing just a little bit self-sufficiency.
We've had a hell of a lot of unfortunate storms at the moment. One being Hale the first one and then Gabrielle not even two weeks later after Hale. They actually were devastating to the coast here. But when they hit us, it was unbelievable. It's it really simply shows the strength of the people back here on the coast, how everyone just gelled and looked after each other because there was no help.
We were cut off from the main cities, from Gisborne, from Whakatāne. That was all cut off. The only way in was through helicopter and things were choppered and food, petrol, diesel were all choppered in. But Gabrielle was so devastating. It really wiped a lot of our lands out which were washed down the river. It's now created silt and debris that's built up the river.
So when we get rain, we used to have a window of about a week. Now we've only got two days now, after the two days, if anything - two hours. And that's the result of what's happening upstream. Because we're down, lower down all the debris is coming to us and backing up on the corner here, and we're getting caught out big time.
Post Gabrielle, we were really, really concerned with regards to another cyclone coming through. We were put at risk. Our home was put at risk. Like all the homes along the strait here. Everyone was at risk.
So we decided to create a stopbank. Was it the right thing to do? For us it was because that was the only thing we could look at in terms of protecting our home. So what we did was that a lot of the frontage of the debris that was on the front was replaced to create a, a bankment, and a lot of the filling, the backfill. We actually compacted a lot of the timber, wood trees and built up of that. So the basically the trees were the base of our stopbank.
We haven't to this day sort of figured out whether it's going to work or not until we get that next big rain or cyclone coming through.
We're going to have to see what happens. We have since planted over 750 native native trees, be it Puriri, Kōwhai, Rimu, Rewarewa. All the natives we've actually planted.
We called the whānau (family). This is what we need to do to protect the home. So they came. It took us a whole day. And that was just amazing time to spend with whānau (family), mokopuna (grandchildren).
All we had all through here lunch, the barbecue was pumping. We had our mokopuna (grandchildren) sitting with their nannies, and that all in here.
Those scenes you you just don't. It's hard to find. But for us, it's about supporting each other. When people call, when you call, people come.
This is called the Hiruhārama straight, this whole main road.
What are the longest straights on the coast between township to Te Puia and Ruatoria. During Gabrielle, this whole main road, highway 35 was totally wiped out. And that's through flooding. So when the cyclone came through.
Zed: Yeah.
Tom: That was bad. And the mess and the debris that was left was huge. We get a lot of runoff from the neighbouring properties. with a big drains over here, which just could not handle the volume of water that was during Hale. When Gabrielle hit a couple of weeks later. This whole stretch, all of the property here, was totally under water. We had pine trees that were all here, right through which were just wiped out, tumbled over because of the volume of the water. Our fences, our gates, everything was gone. So there was nothing traffic wise that could come from the south through to the north or north to the south, everything was all under water.
Ethan: Just cut off.
Tom: Totally cut off. And that would have been at least two weeks. That there was no traffic. The only way that we had we could access all get out was either to swim across the raging river. And that's the only way we actually.
Zed: It's quite dangerous, right?
Tom: It is dangerous. Yeah, but because we know the river, we know where we're going to end up. It's just a matter of just going for it.
Zed: Right.
Tom: Gabrielle taught us a few things that that was no longer possible because of the current and what was under the water, and there was a lot of debris that was brought down through the river. So it It was a hazard zone, this was the start of Gabrielle and the devastation that happened.
We were only one a feather in the bloody pile, ay, of of what's happened up the coast, up the coast here we got hammered, absolutely thrashed by the cyclones.
Zed: Devastating.
Tom: But that's how we, we just we know just how to survive.
Ethan: Got to rebuild.
Tom: Got to rebuild and hunker down, ass up and head down and just get back into it.
Ethan: Yeah. Yeah.
Tom: You know, no one else is going to help you.
Ethan: Yeah.
Tom: Being isolated up the coast, you just get on with it.
Ethan: Yeah.
Zed: That’s the spirit.
Tom: No mucking around. Just bloody get on with it.
Ethan: So what have you done to prepare?
Tom: Yeah, that's a good question. We've always been prepared. We've always been brought up on the coast. You've always got backup. And the backup would be flour, because you could always make bread and milk. We've got milking goats, which you can see through there.
Ethan/Zed: Oh, yeah.
Tom: Yeah, In terms of preparation. We normally can read the signs which way the winds are blowing, and the wind is the one that determines which way. Which way the heavy rains are coming. So our north westerly northeasterly is not a good wind for us because the rain will hang around longer than a southerly. You know, we know how to live off the land. We do hunting.
Ethan: Yep.
Tom: So a lot of our food is gathered from the land. So if we run out of food, we just go up the hill and knock over a bloody deer or something,
Ethan: Okay? Yeah, yeah.
Tom: And that’s how we live.
Ethan: So make sure you got food.
Tom: Always got food. The good thing about it though, is that I've got to say, is that having the GridFree solar system we've had, during Gabrielle, the coast was cut off. Yep. No power whatsoever. Our local radio station, which is the information hub to the coast, was cut off because they had never had enough, petrol to run the generators. With us having GridFree solar, we were watching movies while everything was in darkness. And you can't beat it. It's a no brainer to go there.
So I've been having those conversations with the manager of the radio station. We got to go there because you guys, once the information is lost and you can't get the information to the people, no one knows what's happening.
Zed/Ethan: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Tom: So those are all the part of preparations that people are actually starting to to really head down that line of solar.
Zed/Ethan: Of course.Yeah. About being self-sufficient,
Tom: Self-sufficient.
Ethan: Independent.
Tom: Totally independent.
Ethan: Yeah.
Tom: Because no one else is, when you're cut off like us, no one else can help us.
Ethan: That's right.
Tom: You know, we've been asked to be part of the, the emergency call out.
Ethan: Yeah.
Tom: We can't we we we just looking after ourselves because we can't get out.
In terms of ownership of the land, we would never own the land. We as Māori never own the land. We are just the (caretaker) kaitiaki of a tā te whenua (our land). And the proverb goes,
Ko au te whenua, ko te whenua ko au.
I am the land, the land is me.
(Ko au te whenua, ko te whenua ko au)
We look after the land, the land will always look after us.
And that’s how, that’s how we think.
Zed & Ethan: Wow, that’s amazing.
Tom: It's it's simple. Yeah. It's simple.
Ethan: Yeah, yeah. Simple rule to life.
Tom: That's it. That's it, bro, but it's the next generation. We've got to uphold those simple basics because our kids are coming through next. Our moko’s (grandchildren) are all coming through. So hopefully with those simple,
basic teachings that our parents, our Tīpuna (ancestors) have taught
us, you know, we pass pretty much. We just pass it on. Just the messenger.
[Laughter]
Zed: Yeah, awesome.
Ethan: What a great story.
Tom: Let's go home and have a cup of tea.
Ethan: Perfect sounds awesome. Awesome.
Solano (Crew): It's not loaded, ay?
Tom: No, it's not loaded, ay.
Solano: Just in case.
Tom: See where that horse is? Where that horse is?
Zed: Yeah I see the horse? Yeah.
Tom: So what we do is that we range in there.
Zed: How far is he?
Tom: What’s, how far that - he’s a 1000m.
Zed: He's 1000m?
Tom: Yeah. So once we range find that to whatever
the animal distance is, we dial it up on this rifle here.
Zed: 965 metres.
Tom: Across the front there digitally.
Ethan: Aw it’s digital? Wow.
Tom: It'll it'll bring up. You just dial up your thousand or whatever that's reading. Dial it up there, bro. Aim. Pull the trigger and it should drop.
Ethan: As long as there's no crosswind.
Tom: Yeah. You you allow for that little bit of crosswind? Cos what we do is that we always hunt into the wind. And the reason for that is that your animals can't smell you.
Zed/Ethan: Ohhhh. Yeah.
Tyler (Crew): Oh, true!
Tom: So anything that's behind you, and you've got the wind behind you waste of time! Yeah they'll pick you up. So we always hunt into the wind. So we're lucky, fortunate here, we're lucky that we able to hunt this side. And we're able to hunt all they way on our back block. Southerly, on the southerly wind we'll go this side and a north westerly, we’ll go here.
Tom: Honest mate, if you want to go for bloody shoot out hunting bro?
Zed: I've never done it, man.
Tom: You’d love it.
Zed: I’d would love to see what it’s like.
Tom: So this is how we normally how we just gear up, ay. Ya knife, ya binos. Normally you would have a backpack. Carry a backpack and your rifle
and that’s us, yeah.
If there's any advice I could give, give to you guyswho are thinking of going off grid, is that just bloody give it a go. You got to give it a go. If you don't give anything, go. You never know. Everyone's different. For me and my family, it's working. And honestly, I would never look back We've got to get a mindset that self-sufficient is the only way to go.
And solar being self-sufficient totally off the main grid is the only way for me. GridFree, man, you've got to go to there. For us, it's just knowing you've got power. You've got power at your fingertips. Be it turn the light on, be it put your stove on. Up on the coast here, honestly, power cuts is an everyday thing. And that could be 24 hours. Whatever. But with the solar system, with having GridFree solar, you just. You've got power at your fingertips.
Off-grid living means to us as a family, security. It means that we're safe. It means we can keep in contact with what's happening over the river when we can't get over. And, it means that we have continuous power to keep the family warm. That's our biggest advantage to having solar.
