Photo: RNZ / Pretoria Gordon
An Ohakune resident says the Desert Road closure is the only time the town has wished roadworks could go for longer.
The State Highway 1 road will reopen at 1pm on Friday after a two-month closure for major roadworks.
The road between Tūrangi and Waiouru has been shut since mid-January, adding a detour of up to 40 minutes.
The transport agency's contractors has now repaired 28 kilometres of road - 12 more than planned.
But for Ohakune businesses, which usually are at their peak during the ski season, trade has been booming while the detour has been in place.
TCB Ski Board and Bike managing director Ben Wiggins said places like retail and hospitality had seen the biggest increases in business.
He said many businesses in the town's main street were doing record numbers of sales, some even up to 400 percent what they would have normally done.
In a business like his, there were fewer people coming through from places like Taupō.
But due to the sheer volume of traffic detouring through the area, his business was up around 5-10 percent.
Wiggins also expected to see a small influx in areas of the business such as heli-biking now that the Desert Road was reopening.
Wiggins said a lot of people who had come through Ohakune hadn't stopped there before, and after visiting some were now planning to stop there in the future.
"It's the only time that our little town's wish is that the road works would go longer."
Front of house at Utopia Cafe Helen Brown said the last couple of months had been busier than the ski season, their usual peak season.
The cafe which had made a sign providing cheeky commentary on the closure was also going to be updating its famous sign.
The sign had read "Yes! We know the Desert Road is closed. Yes! We are a lot busier! Yes! We love the business!"
Brown said they would now be replacing it with one that said "Yes! We know the Desert Road is open. Yes! We enjoyed the last two months! Yes! We will miss the constant queues and business!"
Ruapehu Mayor Weston Kirton said that upsurge in retail had been felt across the district.
The general feeling was that people were happy they'd had two months of higher than usual business.
He said the area had also seen more overseas visitors usual and hoped that would continue.
However it wasn't all good news, Kirton said he was also aware there had been some accidents on the roads, which weren't set up for heavy traffic.
Transporting New Zealand meanwhile was pleased the Transport Agency got the road reopened on schedule.
Transporting New Zealand said the closure had meant 800 trucks per day needed to take a detour, with the vast majority using SH4, which usually got about 240 trucks per day.
Chief executive Dom Kalasih said the cost related to the additional detour time for trucks was about $100,000 per day.
He hoped this period of maintenance work would mean fewer unplanned closures on the Desert Road.
Topia Rameka, the chief executive of the Lake Rotoaira Forest Trust, a Māori trust that administers land in the central North Island, earlier this year told RNZ he was blindsided by news the Desert Road was closing.
Rameka hoped the Transport Agency would give clearer notice in the future.
Rameka was also involved with heli=biking adventure company Kaimanawa Alpine Adventures, which is located off the Desert Road.
"We've been closed on numerous days over the closure period," he said. "So we're grateful for clients that were open to us shifting their bookings through to the next couple months."
The Desert Road will open with traffic management and speed restrictions in some parts for three to four days.
Further work to finish the road surfacing will happen later in the year, and will mostly be carried out at night.
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