{"id":18189,"date":"2025-09-12T14:49:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-12T14:49:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/18189\/"},"modified":"2025-09-12T14:49:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-12T14:49:10","slug":"missing-memorial-seat-found-across-cook-strait-after-being-washed-out-to-sea-in-tasman-floods","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/18189\/","title":{"rendered":"Missing memorial seat found across Cook Strait after being washed out to sea in Tasman floods"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"JackJack Robertson\u2019s missing memorial seat was discovered on Waikanae Beach, K\u0101piti Coast.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d like to say how special it is that Jack has ended up facing K\u0101piti Island, which is where his grandparents are buried, at the cemetery in Waikanae,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s come to say hello.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s remarkable. It\u2019s amazing. Like, very emotional.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"JackJack Robertson\u2019s missing memorial seat was discovered on Waikanae Beach, K\u0101piti Coast.<\/p>\n

Before it was swept away, the special seat sat on a local farmer\u2019s land, McKay said.<\/p>\n

She said the farmer told her the flooding in July was \u201cunprecedented\u201d because the floodwaters reached the chair that was perched on high land.<\/p>\n

\u201cJack\u2019s chair was quite high; he\u2019s never seen the water come up that high, and off he went on his adventure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Robertson\u2019s sister-in-law made a desperate Facebook post on July 14, sharing the news that the bench was swept away in the terrible floods that hit the region.<\/p>\n

They received a message from a family who discovered the chair and googled the name on the plaque, and the \u201cmissing chair\u201d post popped up.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had a feeling it might [be found] like I thought that Jack was just off on another adventure.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t think he\u2019d travel that far, though,\u201d McKay said.<\/p>\n

She said a local trucking firm is going to bring his chair back to the family.<\/p>\n

\"AA young man\u2019s memorial seat was miraculously discovered months after it was swept out to sea.<\/p>\n

The young man\u2019s chair was made by Weka Workshop in Golden Bay.<\/p>\n

The plaque said he loved to swim in the river.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe passed away when he was 21, and he loved to swim in the river. That was one of his favourite pastimes, which is why we placed his chair there.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was a good guy,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

McKay said she looked forward to having the chair back and often used to visit Jack\u2019s chair on her lunch break, but its new location is yet to be decided.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe chair will come home for a while, and we\u2019ll get him sanded and sorted and then, you know, he might like a different location now, so we\u2019ll see.\u201d<\/p>\n

She thanked the family who found his chair, the K\u0101piti Coast District Council, which helped remove the chair from the beach, the Golden Bay community, for helping it go \u201cviral\u201d, and the local trucking firm.<\/p>\n

Sign up to The Daily H<\/a>, a free newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jack Robertson\u2019s missing memorial seat was discovered on Waikanae Beach, K\u0101piti Coast. \u201cI\u2019d like to say how special…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18190,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2840,74,682,19877,1770,4194,127,14647,19876,3092,1874,78,16122,19872,19874,6501,3234,111,43,139,69,3111,4488,3008,7248,2848,14042,19875,2224,61,19873,4741],"class_list":["post-18189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-across","tag-after","tag-being","tag-bolted","tag-concrete","tag-cook","tag-despite","tag-discovered","tag-flooding","tag-floods","tag-found","tag-in","tag-mans","tag-memorial","tag-miraculously","tag-missing","tag-months","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-out","tag-pad","tag-sea","tag-seat","tag-severe","tag-strait","tag-swept","tag-tasman","tag-to","tag-washed","tag-young"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18189"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18189\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}