Truck drivers are frustrated with the Tasman District Council for banning them from using a rural road while a key section of State Highway 6 is closed for repairs.
The main route from Nelson to Blenheim is still out of action after the floods in August.
In August, the bush-clad views of the Whangamoas changed forever after the area was hit with more than a metre of rain in just four days, leaving the main highway a muddy mess.
"The scale of the work and rate we're having to do it is quite different to any other project I've been on," Fulton Hogan's project manager Matthew Loach said.
Now it's a hot, dusty and tricky repair job.
"It's very challenging given the time frame, the environment we're working in and the crew we've had to secure in a very short space of time," New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) acting national manager of maintenance and operations Mark Owen said.
On the project, 120 people are working on it and 100 of them have been brought in from outside the region.
While the section of SH6 between Hira and the Rai Valley is shut, the alternative route on SH63 takes an extra hour longer.
Truck drivers were using a shortcut that shaved 20 minutes of that drive time - but the council has closed it.
"We had a meeting with them and they promised we could use it, it's caused a huge disruption," Centaland Holdings Transportation logistics manager Phil Wadsworth said.
Many trucking companies can now only do one return trip a day instead of two, which has halved their productivity and profits.
"It's quite annoying," Wadsworth said.
But the Council said with 500 trucks using the shortcut each day, the damage was so bad they had to ban them.
"Safety is our key concern. That's why we've had to do what we've had to do," Tasman District Council's Richard Kirby said.
The pressure is on for SH6 to re-open.
There are four major repair sites, and 1.2 kilometres of rock anchors are being used to make the rock faces safer.
But Loach said it's been harder than expected.
"The rock under the road is pretty poor."
On the plus side, years of road maintenance is also being done.
While the total repair cost hasn't been finalised yet - it won't be cheap.
"It's definitely in the millions in terms of activity required," Owen said.
In order to get cars back on the road by Christmas.
