For Matawai School, the closure of a section of SH2 north of Gisborne until at least Friday means one of their two school buses can't operate.

'With the state highway closed we can't run that school bus, so potentially half the school can't get in,” principal Nick Adams says.

A section of SH2 – the main northern route into Gisborne – is closed between Matawai and Te Karaka after recent heavy rain left soil in the district like 'melted ice cream”. Matawai is north of the closed section, while Gisborne is south of it.

Waka Kotahi Central North Island maintenance and operations regional manager Jaclyn Hankin says SH2 was the highway worst hit by recent heavy rain.

Farmer Katie Mitchell said a stretch of SH2 north of Gisborne fell by almost one meter over the weekend. Video: Stuff.

The road had moved about 500mm on Saturday night, with the worst damage at an area called Otoko Hill. It was not expected to reopen until at least Friday.

”There's so much water in the hillside there that we just can't safely open that road because it's continuing to move,” Hankin told Radio New Zealand on Monday morning.

'We are working to get as much water out of that hillside as possible so we can try to get it open, because it is a vital link through to Gisborne.”

School principal Adams says that while it took about the same time for Matawai residents to travel north to Ōpōtiki as it normally took them to visit Gisborne to the south, Gisborne was the main town in the area.

'Gisborne is the centre for us. We have kids in sports teams. They can't participate.”

Some pupils were also unable to visit whānau they would normally stay with, while some people also commuted from Matawai to Gisborne for work, Adams says.

'It's quite a distance for us to travel into town, and we just want it fixed properly.”

An Otoko farmer says the closure of SH2 could make it difficult to get a truck in to collect lambs from the farm, which would normally happen at this time of year.

Getting farm supplies from Gisborne could also be an issue, she says.

She was able to get to Gisborne herself by going cross country through a neighbour's place in a 4WD vehicle. 'It takes twice as long, but is possible,” the farmer, who didn't want to be named, says.

Elsewhere in Tairāwhiti, SH35 the coastal route north of Gisborne reopened on Monday morning.

SH35 had been closed overnight Sunday as a precautionary measure, Waka Kotahi's Hankin says. 'We're still seeing a number of little slips come down, and the land is moving up there as well, but not to the extent on SH2.”

It was hoped SH35 could be kept open overnight Monday, but more rain was expected.

On Coromandel Peninsula, a section of the Thames Coast route – SH25 – was also closed again before dawn on Monday, after rocks and debris slipped overnight Sunday between Tapu and Waiomu.

Waka Kotahi says the latest rock fall on the Thames Coast highway was at Ruamahunga, at one of the places that slipped during the weekend.

While the two weekend slips had been cleared in time to allow the route to reopen at 7.30pm Sunday, the new slip had closed it again before dawn Monday.

In Hawke's Bay, SH50 remains closed between Ongaonga and Tikokino, after one of the abutments of the Waipawa River bridge was washed out.

Gisborne District Council principal scientist Dr Murry Cave described soil in the area as being like melted ice cream. 'It's even sloppier than porridge,” he told RNZ on Monday.

”We're going to have these landslides getting worse over the winter, and it will actually take summer before we start to get some land stability back again,” he says.

'We've had one house red-stickered just this last week, but there are likely to be a number more.”

Gisborne District Council lifted the state of emergency in Tairāwhiti, declared ahead of forecast heavy rain, at noon Sunday.

While the district hadn't received as much rain as predicted, the amount that did fall had created 'havoc”, with landslides and extensive damage to the road network, the council says.

- Michael Daly/Stuff.