Waimarino is a water and adventure park near Bethlehem – you'd think they'd be used to the vagaries that the weather can throw up. But nothing could have prepared them for the storms and floods of the weekend.

'I thought we'd had the biggest floods about 10 years ago, but I was wrong,” says park owner Blair Anderson.

'We have just had it bigger.”

The flood water was chest high in most areas of the park on Saturday morning.

Now there is just a sea of mud and silt.

Blair is fairly chipper this morning despite the fact he's been up much of the night shovelling the silt and mud from his fun park.

'I personally have shifted about 150 length metres by three metres by about 100 millimetres deep of mud.”

And while about 20 staff are on site trying to clean up, Blair and his 2IC Maddie Ahern are calling for help.

'Anyone with a shovel and some time on their hands would be welcome here this morning,” pleads Maddie.

'We really need people and shovels please.”

Once the shovelling is done, they will water blast and hose off the property.

'We intend to be as clean as possible by lunchtime,” says Blair.

'Because we have the child care programme coming in this afternoon.

Maddie was there Saturday morning at the height of the flood.

'It was a disaster – pretty much everything except the rock climbing wall was under water.

Blair has become hardened to unexpected challenges like the Covid pandemic.

'Been through a few difficulties in the last three or four years. This flood is just another one to test you. What doesn't kill you makes you tough,” he says philosophically.

Meanwhile, Blair is back on a shovel this morning cleaning up after a slow moving sub-tropical low-pressure weather system that tried its best to derail his business.

And he needs a hand if you have a shovel and some free time this morning, just show up.