Sadly, we are becoming increasingly used to seeing images from a crash scene in which a caravan has been decimated and its contents are left scattered across the highway.
Sometimes, we even see pictures of the shattered owners picking through what is left of their possessions trying to salvage what they can. We feel sympathy and empathy with those who have lost so much.
How saddening then to hear of the story from New Zealand in which the owner of a caravan destroyed by high winds found that many of his scattered possessions had been stolen from the wreckage.
Alan Briggs had left his $50,000 English Swift caravan parked in a paddock near Ohau and was travelling elsewhere when high winds sent it tumbling. When he returned the next day, Mr Briggs found the wind had actually lifted the caravan over a fence and it had rolled down the hill.
“It was just matchwood,” Briggs told the Timaru Herald.
On closer inspection, he found several items missing, including gas cylinders and a waste water tank.
“Everything was gone when I went up to tidy it up,” he said.
The Timaru Herald reported that also missing was a full can of petrol, two full cans of diesel, electric cabling, folding chairs and many smaller items.
“There’s a lot of things missing and I don’t think they can be anything but stolen,” he said. “I’m disappointed it happened but I am more disappointed, angry and disgusted that someone had just rapped it.”
* Tell us about the worst … and the best … of human nature you have seen while travelling. Comment below.
