You know, sometimes maybe you shouldn't wish your life were more dramatic.

Cos then you'll try and go away on holiday with your kids and 36-week pregnant wife and then your car will break down on the way down to the beach, and then you'll wind up effectively stranded in a caravan at the beach with no car while your wife has a couple of nights of false contractions ... and the weather will be shit ... and then you were meant to get the car back but the courier who was bringing the new part lost it, so they had to order a new part... and then you get a call from your brother-in-law telling you to head for the hills because your father-in-law had called him from Germany and told him that a huge tidal wave was headed for Waihi Beach.
And you have no car. And your heavily-pregnant wife waddles very slowly, especially if it involves going uphill. And fuck, all you want to do is finish your bacon and eggs, drama bedamned!

But it all worked out OK.

Unlike unlucky Samoa, it was a big nothing at our end. A tiny wave, timed with an fully-out tide. We decided to follow the panicking locals up the hill to the evacuation point. On the way some people in a tall house on another hill called us up to their place, which was great because it was going to take a couple of hours to get the the evacuation point at the pregnoid's pace. They gave us coffee, we got a great view of the Big Nothing, and the kids got to play with their kids.

We got the car back later that afternoon and headed home exactly as was originally planned (minus the few hundred dollars in repairs). Had we got the car back earlier, we would have cut our holiday short.

And the kids still had a great time, which was the main thing.

The weather was a bit iffy, but we still got to the beach at least a couple of times a day (well except for the Tsunami day). D-girl, newly six-years-old, learned to ride without her training wheels, which was a big event. She also learned how to write poetry and got her first wobbly tooth.

And I can think of worse places to be stranded for a few days than Waihi Beach.

Even during a tidal wave warning.