Hokitika’s iconic driftwood sign pictured after being vandalised. All of the letters have now been removed. PHOTO: SUPPLIED Hokitika’s widely photographed driftwood sign, which is visited daily in summer by flocks of tourists, will not be resurrected — for now. The sign was vandalised last week, and each of the large letters completely removed. Hokitika police are continuing to investigate. The sign’s creator, Don Neale, was buoyed by offers to help rebuild the beach art installation over the weekend. However, he said yesterday the efforts would be futile. ‘‘I’ve been reliably informed that if the Hokitika sign goes up again in the next few months, it’ll just get knocked down again, so for now I’m not going to waste my time by putting it back up.’’ He said he would revisit rebuilding it closer to summer. At the time of the sabotage, Mr Neale said one person had ruined it for most of the town. The driftwood sign first popped up as a feature of the Driftwood and Sand Festival, but became a permanent fixture along the beachfront when the seawall was built in 2013. A second beach sign built about 500m to the north more recently has also met a sad demise. Local sculptor Rory McDougall created the ‘‘Waitaha’’ installation in January, using driftwood. On Friday he said it, too, had been vandalised around the same time as the other sign. — Janna Sherman
