I flew to Greymouth the morning after Pike River first blew.  

I was there, in and out, for several weeks. I keenly remember those first few days of waiting. Of hope. Checking our phones. Checking our phones. Checking our phones. 

It’s a cliche, I know. But time moves so slowly when you’re watching a clock. I remember the calculations. How much air? Water? Food? I remember the international media pouring into Greymouth. I remember the despair on the Wednesday afternoon when the families were called in for an update. The mine had blown again. The men were all dead.  

One of the great privileges of being a journalist is that you get to meet lots of interesting people and experience lots of different things. I’ve certainly had more than my share of pinch-myself moments over the years. But for all the elections and Olympics and Donald Trump rallies I’ve been lucky to attend one the most memorable afternoons of my life was the afternoon of the Pike River memorial. 

You might recall it. It was less than a fortnight after the men went missing... a big public event at a racecourse just out of town. But instead of going, I decided to stay the afternoon in Greymouth.  

And I’ve never experienced anything like it.  

It. Was. Empty.  

Not a car. Not an open shop. Not a soul. You could walk down the painted line in the middle of the road. There was no one. Everyone was gone because a piece of everyone was gone. The loss was absolute. 

It still seems a bit surreal. Mining has never been the safest industry, and the Coast has more than its share of tragic history hidden in its magnificent bush-covered valleys, but that almost every player on a rugby pitch could go in for a shift and never come home – in modern New Zealand – is still shocking to me.  

I watched Pike River the film this week. I found it very affecting. It’s interesting to note the director Rob Sarkies also directed Out of the Blue, the film about Aramoana. He waited 16 years after the massacre to make and release that film. He’s waited almost as long for Pike River. He’s really got a knack for sensitively telling some of the most painful-but-important New Zealand stories.  

But there’s a big and obvious difference between Out of the Blue and Pike River. 

The Pike River story still isn’t over. Police and the Crown Solicitor are still deciding whether to lay criminal charges. 

After all of those days waiting to see if their boys might have somehow survived, all of those weeks and then months and then years to see if the mine could be re-entered, if they could recover the remains of their loved ones... The families of the Pike 29 are still waiting.  

The media left town. In a way, the World moved on. But you get the sense, after 15 years, that a little part of Greymouth is still hollowed out. Still waiting for justice. 

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