Tom Phillips and family likely to be 'moving quite regularly' in cold bush, says hunter
The Phillips children during an earlier birthday celebration.
Photo:
Supplied
The oldest missing Phillips child will celebrate yet another birthday on the run today, but an experienced bushman says it is likely to be a miserable day.
Jayda Phillips, who turns 12 today, has been missing along with her siblings Ember, 9, and Maverick, 10, since December 2021, when they were taken by their father Tom Phillips to an unknown location - though police believe they are still in the King Country, near where they went missing.
Ken McCann is a highly experienced hunter and current secretary of the Central King Country branch of the New Zealand Deerstalkers Association.
He said the King Country bush in winter is a cold and wet place which makes your bones ache.
"With all the rain we've had and now we are into sub-zero temperatures with very wet bush, it's extreme cold. I certainly would not like to be camping in the bush at the current time," he said.
This is the fourth winter the father and children have been missing.
"I really feel for those kids if they are stuck in the bush through this sort of weather, it would not be a pleasant experience," said McCann.
Having learnt to hunt at 8-years-old, McCann knows what it is like to be in the bush as a child.
He said if you were planning to be hunting or camping at this time of year, you would need a very good set-up.
"You'd want a really good tent, you'd want to get off the ground as much as possible, you'd really want to put your camp in a clearing where you'd get some sunshine to dry things."
The Phillips are
thought to be nearer to coastal King Country in Marokopa
, rather than the central King Country.
"You still get a lot of rain but get a bit more wind and things dry a bit better, but it's still very unpleasant," said McCann.
He said it is pretty taxing trying to survive in the bush anywhere in the area during winter, especially without the sun to navigate by.
"If it's really cloudy and clagged in then it is a lot harder to move around and keep your own internal bearing as to where you are heading. If you are in the fog and it's low cloud in the bush, it's not a pleasant place."
Police and private investigators have repeatedly said they think
someone is helping Phillips
, both to evade police and to move around.
McCann said it has crossed his mind several times why no hunters had stumbled across the family.
"I'm picking that they are moving quite regularly," he said.
Police told RNZ yesterday that the Phillips investigation is still active, but there were no updates available.
Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero
,
a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
RNZ News
3 hours ago
- RNZ News
Ninety-minute delay as fog forces Sydney to Hamilton flight to circle airport
Photo: 123rf A Jetstar flight from Sydney had to circle in a holding pattern on Saturday because fog at Hamilton Airport prevented its landing. A spokesperson for the airport, which recently restarted international flights, said it was out of an abundance of caution. Jetstar said flight JQ165 made two go-arounds, and these are standard procedures. Hamilton Airport chief executive, Mark Morgan, said he believed passengers spent about an extra hour in the air, while flight tracking website reported that the flight was delayed by one hour and 29 minutes. A screenshot from the flight tracking website showing flight JQ165 circling Hamilton Airport after fog prevented its landing. Photo: Supplied / The plane eventually landed at 12.34pm. Fog also affected seven regional flights at Auckland Airport Saturday morning. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
RNZ News
2 days ago
- RNZ News
Forecast suggests best chance of seeing Matariki stars on East Coast
The Matariki star cluster will be visible on New Zealand's eastern horizon just before dawn. Photo: Quin Tauetau People hoping to catch a glimpse of the Matariki stars over the long weekend will have the best chance on the East Coast. The star cluster will be visible on New Zealand's eastern horizon just before dawn. NIWA's cloud cover forecast showed Eastern regions such as Hawke's Bay, Wairarapa, and the lower North Island, along with parts of the upper and eastern South Island, can expect clearer skies than other regions. Meteorologist Chris Brandolino said stargazers could check the cloud cover forecast on Vimeo, which would be updated at 3.30pm each day for the following morning. Brandolino said the east of the South Island would get the best views. "As you get farther to the north of Dunedin, over toward Timaru, Oamaru, Christchurch and farther north toward perhaps even Kaikōura, there will be some pretty good viewing conditions." He said there were actions people could take to get a better view. "If you can find an area where there's no street lights or a lack of street lights - or maybe take a 10 minute drive to where you're a bit more removed from the urban areas." Forecast by region: Upper North Island (including Auckland, Hamilton, Tauranga, Coromandel Peninsula) East Coast (including Gisborne, Napier, Wairarapa) Western North Island (including New Plymouth, Whanganui) Lower North Island (including Wellington) Upper South Island (including Nelson, Blenheim) Eastern South Island (including Christchurch, Timaru) West Coast (including Greymouth, Hokitika) Lakes Region (including Queenstown, Wanaka) Lower South Island (including Dunedin, Invercargill) Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
RNZ News
2 days ago
- RNZ News
Northland's 'particularly vicious' drought continues to bite
So far this year Northland has been battered by record-breaking rain, a cyclone and even a tornado. But the region's also had to contend with a drought, and nowhere was that more keenly felt than in Dargaville. So what's being done to fix the area's long-running water woes? There is frustration on the streets of Dargaville. The nation's kumara capital - and the biggest town in the west of the Kaipara District - has been subject to summer water restrictions longer than most folk can remember. Andy Bryenton does not mince his words about last summer's drought. "It was particularly vicious. It really hit the farmers hard. I mean, those guys are prepared for this kind of thing, but it was more extreme than anyone anticipated." In town, frustration centred on water restrictions that started before Christmas and only lifted in April. "There were certainly a lot of angry people saying we need an end to those water restrictions." That was followed by a pipe break that saw much of the town without water during King's Birthday weekend. Bryenton says planning needed to happen sooner, by both local and central government. "It's unmistakable now that the weather's changing, the seasons are changing, and if we're going to get more droughts like that, then we need to look ahead." Dargaville Ratepayers and Residents Association chairwoman Rose Dixon says the almost annual water restrictions make it hard for locals to beat the cost-of-living crisis by growing their own vegetables at home. It also means her kids miss out on summer fun. "Every summer they've gone without that quintessential Kiwi summer where you get to pull out the water slide, pull out the sprinklers and have fun in the backyard. It's a bit sad to think they've missed out on those opportunities I had growing up," she says. Ruawai dairy farmer Greg Gent says Kaipara farmers need to be prepared for the district's weather extremes. Photo: RNZ / Peter de Graaf Figures from the Northland Regional Council show the Dargaville area received just 20 percent of its usual summer rain - and that is in a place that is pretty dry even in a normal summer. Iwi leader Snow Tane, who heads the Dargaville-based Te Roroa Development Group, says the drought dented farmers' incomes and forced them to use feed set aside for winter. It also forced rural residents, many of whom are already struggling to pay their bills, to spend hundreds of dollars at a time filling their rainwater tanks. "The biggest problem that Dargaville had is they had to conserve water. And because they had to conserve water, they couldn't do a lot of things that they would do normally. And so what we saw was, for months on end, we were under some of the strictest water restrictions in the country." Tane says preparing for - and adapting to - the changing climate is vital. "If you look at all the predictions from the likes of Niwa, dry conditions are going to get worse. So it's important that we know what the projections are, and we should be working towards building resilience and infrastructure in townships like Dargaville." That could include, for example, making it easier for people in town to install rainwater tanks, so they could supplement the council's water supply themselves. Dairy farmer Greg Gent owns about 200ha at Ruawai, south of Dargaville, with his daughter and son-in-law. He says last summer's drought was one of the toughest he has experienced. "We've had them before, but it got very dry. We're probably down about $100,000 in income off this farm. And then on top of that, costs were up because we had to bring in more supplementary feed. That was probably another $100,000. "On the plus side we had a brilliant spring, probably one of the best springs ever. So we had a lot of grass silage, that helped a lot." Gent says drought has always been part of farming life in the Kaipara, affecting about two years out of every seven. It is too soon to be sure if droughts are getting worse, he says. "When you go farming, that's part of the package, you sign up for variability in weather. It does at times make it very trying and very hard for those getting started." However, Gent says farms are businesses and do not expect government handouts. What he does expect from the government is good science around climate adaptability, something he says has slipped in recent years. Risk planning is key to getting through whatever nature has in store, he says. "Just making sure you've got enough supplementary feed on hand so if you hit a dry period, you can farm your way through it, and obviously keeping your costs down. So if you've got to dry the cows off early, you know you can still be profitable." Once full, Te Waihekeora Reservoir, at Redhill, south of Dargaville, will hold 3.3 million cubic metres of water. Photo: RNZ / Nick Monro Dargaville's water woes could, however, be coming to an end. In the hills near Glinks Gully, about 20km south of town, an artificial lake is slowly filling with 3.3 million cubic metres of water. Te Waihekeora Reservoir is being built by the Te Tai Tokerau Water Trust with a multi-million-dollar loan from what used to be called the Provincial Growth Fund. Trust chairman Murray McCully, a foreign minister under the John Key government, says the water is pumped up 80 metres from four drains feeding into the Northern Wairoa River. Water is taken when stream levels are high, and in summer it will be gravity-fed to where it's needed. McCully says the Dargaville area does not have a shortage of water - it is just that it all comes in winter, and it has not been stored for the dry summer months. Te Tai Tokerau Water Trust chairman Murray McCully at the newly completed Te Waihekeora Reservoir south of Dargaville. Photo: RNZ / Nick Monro "For the township, it's been a complete train wreck. You routinely have water restrictions in Dargaville starting late October, early November, and it restricts economic activity as well as social activity across the district." McCully says the lack of water is also a handbrake on the town's biggest employer, Silver Fern Farms' meat processing plant, which often has to cut production at its busiest time of year. "And if you look at the hills around here, they brown out pretty quickly over summer. If you want to get an uplift in production in this area, stored water for cropping, market gardening, horticulture, that's where the future of this place is going to be." By 2027 McCully says a $17.5 million pipeline will allow 1100ha of river flats south of Dargaville to be irrigated and put to more intensive use. Avocado orchards, planted by local iwi Te Uri o Hau and Lynwood Nurseries, one of the country's biggest producers of avocado seedlings, are already springing up around the reservoir. Another pipeline, to be built and paid for by the Kaipara District Council, should mean an end to Dargaville's summer water restrictions. The trust has finished building another dam near Kaikohe in the Far North, and is working on an even bigger one near Waimate North, midway between Kaikohe and Kerikeri. Te Tai Tokerau Water Trust chairman Murray McCully surveys the newly completed Te Waihekeora Reservoir south of Dargaville. Photo: RNZ / Peter de Graaf McCully says an irrigation scheme built in Kerikeri in the 1980s transformed that town's economy. "Northland, particularly the western side of Northland, is usually in the news for the wrong reasons. It's at the wrong end of most social and economic statistics. And I know that Shane Jones [then Regional Economic Development Minister] wanted to make sure the western side of Northland was given the same opportunity that Kerikeri got many years ago," he says. "There's no reason why western parts of Northland can't enjoy exactly the same benefits. They've got great climates. They've got great soil. They just need water. And that's what we're trying to do." And on top of that, a few summers from now, Dargaville kids may finally be able to while away hot afternoons playing on water slides in the backyard - just like kids anywhere else in New Zealand. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
