A mother has spoken of her fear and then absolute relief when her three-year-old child went missing in remote forest near Tolaga Bay.
Axle Hamblyn with his mother, Haley Allatt. Photo: RNZ / Tom Kitchin
The toddler, Axle Hamblyn, disappeared on Tuesday afternoon, triggering a huge search that continued overnight until he was discovered yesterday morning.
He was found by a member of the public.
Axle said this afternoon that he was feeling "good" because "he's home."
He said sleeping with the bunny rabbits kept him warm. He was wearing a new Swanndri from the hospital which he liked because "it was warm".
"Thank you everybody for helping find me."
His mother Haley Allatt said she felt terrible when she couldn't find him.
"It's like my soul just left me. I don't know how to explain it, just the worst feeling in the world, knowing that you may never ever see him again, thinking he's just there in the orchard or there playing outside and he's gone."
Before he went missing, she was inside with her five-month old baby.
"Axle walks inside and says: "I'm playing with Bro, Mum, and I said, 'all good, cool'.
"So [partner] Glenn walked outside and Axle walked after him so I thought, he's going out with him, he's just up the hill. Half an hour later I went out to check."
She found Axle was not with Glenn, so a party went off searching.
A group of friends drove their motorbike around the property calling out and trying to find him.
"We were just hard out searching for him," she said.
"I went to the actual police station to see if anyone just dropped him off and there was nobody there, so I called 111 and then they said to meet me out here with a search team."
She is the mother of eight children, aged from 17 to five months.
"I was just hard out looking for him, calling for him .. climbing mountains, yelling out, screaming, walking through paddocks ... bribing him with McDonalds if he'd make a sound 'cos he likes McDonalds.
Glenn hugs son Axle after the three-year-old was found following an overnight search Photo: Supplied / UAWA Live
Overnight she was inside with her baby, but "just sat there, waiting".
"I couldn't stop crying, I was literally crying from the moment he disappeared, till the moment, well even when he was found I was a mess."
Axle had only suffered scratches and bump marks on his legs during the time he was lost.
In Gisborne this morning, strangers were congratulating the family as they walked into Pak'nSave.