Television personality Matt Watson says he's lost power at his home in the Bay of Islands and his "whole house was moving" as strong winds lashed the upper North Island overnight.
Cyclone Gabrielle has caused havoc for much of the upper North Island, and Watson told AM the weather overnight went "to a whole nother level".
"This is a steadily built house and the whole house was moving, the noise was unreal."
Watson told AM he was up in the late hours of the night screwing loose roofing to his deck.
"You can probably see behind me here, that's one of the bits of roofing flashing that's down, I was sort of up in the night drilling it straight to the deck, damaging my beautiful deck, but I kinda had to, because it was smashing against the house."
While Watson is without power, he said there's a "bit of juice in our batteries from our solar system".
"But there's not any sun shining so we're going to be very conservative on using power."
Watson's whose home sits in front of the ocean, said an island at the front of his home couldn't be seen at times.
"The white water was just whipped up. A combination of the swells breaking and then the wind just making these twisters and just whipping the ocean to foam."
He told AM that rock boulders weighing 100kgs that use to sit on the beach were gone by Monday morning.
"They're just not there, just the force of the ocean."
Watch the full interview above.
