A year ago the Wilson family's apple trees were bowled like nine pins when logs came crashing through stop banks and silt drowned many areas. Did the trees come good?

It's very close to a year since a brown swirling mass of logs punched through stop banks, bowling down many of the Wilson family's apple trees, leaving their Hawkes Bay orchard smothered in stinking mud.

As well as cleaning up, it's been a year of wading through paperwork and plans, of swirling among zoning decisions and loan schemes.

Can we replant and rebuild, how and when?

Despite the tumult Cyclone Gabrielle brought to her and her family, Lesley Wilson always seemed serene and matter-of-fact when Country Life checked in on her progress every few months, giving a snapshot of life in repair-mode after the worst weather event to hit the area in living memory.

Listen to Lesley Wilson a year on from Gabrielle

"It's a bit exhausting but we're getting there," she told us a week after losing more than a quarter of their orchard, their home and their offspring's, the vehicles and all the machinery in the massive February 14 storm. Not to mention having to deal with all that mud and slash.

But she had a toothbrush and a hairbrush and a change of clothes, enough for the time-being.

Three months later uncertainty hung in the air and the clean-up, on top of a meaningless harvest was gruelling.

Apples on the top half of trees sitting in silt had to go in the bin.

Silt metres deep had to be cleared, and the orchard floor levelled

She sounded frustrated. They needed clear direction from the government.

"We need to be able to make decisions about whether we can live where we want to live or not, whether we can rebuild or not.

They had fixed up a cabin on the property and were preparing for winter without the normal comforts. But she was also optimistic.

"I'm still pretty positive really, I have my bad moments but as long as the sun keeps shining it's good."

Gabrielle, if anything, had brought the community closer, she said. They had made new friends and Mary Danielson of the local Puketapu pub had looked after the locals.

"It keeps your head on straight and gives you a few laughs and you can carry on."

Mary Danielson of the Puketapu Hotel

In August she was surprised at how far they had come. They were 18 months ahead of where they thought they might be. Logs had been cleared and composted, silt was being removed. But had the surviving trees suffered under the load?

They would have to wait a few more months till blossom time, she said, do some leaf analysis, wait and see.

The community was coping but only just, she told us…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details