So Denise was up in Whangarei and had been staying for a week and a half and was about to load up the car on last Wednesday morning to come back home and disaster! The car was not there and had simply vanished!

Not ideal in any circumstance. There were no rental cars available from Whangarei and flights were expensive and not convenient so a phone call to the police was still the first option.

The good news was the Police called within a couple of hours and had located the car which was stuck in mud next to a lake in a small town called Hikurangi which was 17 kms north of Whangarei. It appears the thieves had broken one of the small back windows, got into the car, smashed the ignition and nicked off with it.

The good news is there wasn’t too much damage and the car was still in a drive-able condition albeit with the assistance of a common kitchen knife to turn the car off and on. Other damage was mud left inside the vehicle, a dent and various scratches on the boot and obviously damage to the key ignition system.

We only had 3rd party insurance on the car, so it might cost $200-$300 for repairs to get it back up to scratch. Still an inconvenience either way …

Clearly the criminals involved had no sense of style as this was not the sort of car anyone would want to be seen in! Thank goodness for mud eh?

New Zealand is supposed to be the 2nd safest country in the world – this doesn’t say much for the rest of the countries on the planet 🙁