It came from beneath the er... beach...

Some time ago, on one of our walks along the beach to Waitohu Stream with Wilma the Wonder Lab, a local told us about a car that had got stuck in the sand a few years back, and while the driver went to find someone who could tow him out, it sank completely from view.

I have to admit, I was skeptical. A local legend, I decided (the term urban is a stretch). We've been around the area for 7 years now & we had neither heard of this, nor seen it at the time, nor since. Then... during our recent 3 week sojourn to Sunny O, on another walk with Wilma the Wonder Lab... we came across this:









The two days later, after the big rainstorm that flooded parts of the Kapiti Coast (the 3rd one hundred year weather event since 2003 according to the newspaper) and closed off State Highway 1, the Waitohu Stream was the Mighty Waitohu River pushing tonnes of debris & trees out to sea (and the sea was pushing it all back onto the beach - little known fact (possibly): apparently Tom Hanks built his Castaway raft out of Otaki driftwood, possibly pushed out to sea & back onto the beach by the Mighty Waitohu River)... and where was I? Oh yeah... the car had disappeared again! Sunk back into the depths, or so I imagined. Then another local saw me looking confused & told me a tractor had turned up the day before, several years after the driver went looking for one, and towed it out for good.

Anyway, I'm always moaning that nothing interesting washes up on Otaki beach, Vancouver Island gets Nike shoes apparently, and Florida gets Lego. Otaki gets what appears to be mulch and dead sheep (Wilma likes the latter). So there you go. Still hoping I'll find a Viking helmet actually.


PS: Someone who knows better than me tells me it is a Subaru. And Jeremy Clarkson was not on hand to confirm whether it started first time.