Disaster Strikes

---

Deb and I set out to explore Northland for a week before Chris' 21st birthday on Saturday. On our 4th day of roadtripping we made it to Ahipara, a surfer's paradise.

We woke up and drove to Shipwreck Bay, where you can walk along the points during low tide and see sand dunes. It was approaching high-tide, so worrying that we might get caught being thrown in the water, we put our cameras in a plastic bag, threw our wallets in the locked glove compartment, hid everything in the trunk and set off to walk around the rocky point before we couldn't get past. The walk was beautiful. The jutting rocks, the beautiful blue water, the giant sand dunes beside us. It was awesome. Deb was adventurous and set out to climb the dunes, while I just wanted to sit and enjoy the waves crashing on the rocks. Man I love the beach. After an hour or so we headed back, and that's when I saw it.

Cleaning off our feet beside the car, I noticed that the driver's side of the car had been smashed in. While Deb ran off to find a cell to call the police I peered in to see if anything was missing. The only thing I could tell was gone was my bag. My ENTIRE bag. My brand new, beautiful, expensive bag with ALL my things was gone. I didn't know what to do. Deb was crying, but I was in shock. I kept calm thinking maybe they didn't get to our wallets. I opened the door. The glove compartment was down a bit. I thought we were saved. Nope. They got both our wallets, but left Deb's cell and IPOD. My IPOD was in the door, so luckily they didn't get that. A check of the car revealed that Deb was missing her wallet and toiletry bag, and all I had left was my hiking shoes, sweatshirt, IPOD, and the clothes I was wearing.

I was surprisingly calm for the most part but when we got to the police station it hit me. Writing down everything that was stolen jarred something in me and I couldn't stop crying. Obviously I'm happy I wasn't held up at gunpoint, or injured or killed, or that the car was stolen, but it was really upsetting. It's not what was lost. I mean, I can replace everything. It's the fact that someone had done that to us, not to mention the aggravation I have to go through to replace all my stuff. It's overwhelming!

After 3 hours with the police, and a ride down 90 Mile Beach in a cruiser to all the "hot dump spots", we headed home to Deb's house to regroup. The past couple days have been a blur. Deb's friend, Alex, called a local radio station and they started a "Save Cybil" campaign where people donated stuff, and I was interviewed for a local newspaper. If you're interested you can read it here . They did screw up though, my bag and 90%!o(MISSING)f our stuff was hidden in the back of our station wagon under the cover. My bag was NOT visible when we left.

I'll write about our trip to Northland soon, but now I just need to relax and get over the shock of being robbed.

---