Mike Harman's Journal

Day 3 was supposed to be a English breakfast followed by a park and show at the Beac.h reserve.
Unfortunately the day was wet windy . At the show the night before some of us were talking about the incoming cyclone and the fact that we would bail early from the rally to trty and get home before it hit, which is exactly what happened on Saturday night or should I say early hours Sunday morning I woke up around 2am with the rain beating horozontal onto the window and the wind howling, as it was pitch black we had to wait until daylight to try and escape.
Day ;ight saw us packed had a quick coffee as we had at least 2 hrs to drive home.
Throught the bags into the back behind the seats and jumped in thank goodness that I had the hard top on.
The next hour and a half was hard driving in torrentinal rain and strong wind gusts but we made it out of Whangamata just in time. as later in the day it was isolated from every where.
It was a great very friendly rally and I will be back next year it is the organisers that I feel sorry for as they had put a great effort into it.
The storm that I talk about made world news and wiped out over half of the North Island of NZ and will take many months if not years to repair the damage and rebuild the roads that were wiped out;