Top Gear fans' driving ambition
Trinda and Chayne Steen waited all day on Ninety Mile Beach on Tuesday for a glimpse of the Top Gear stars roaring past at more than 150km/h.
The Kaitaia couple had waited the day before as well and yesterday they were planning to wait again in the hope of seeing the popular BBC TV show being filmed in their backyard.
Waiting with them at Hukatere, roughly halfway up Ninety Mile Beach, on Tuesday were a dozen other fans of the popular motoring show, the odd protester and a few bemused tourists.
Even after two days of scanning the beach in vain Mrs Steen hadn't given up hope of seeing Top Gear presenters Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond.
"We're big fans of the show. We want to meet them and hopefully get a picture."
Mr Steen explained the show's appeal.
"It's the antics they get up to, they're amazing. And the cars are a bonus."
Others travelled much further to wait hopefully at Hukatere, including Jovica Mrkela, who drove from Auckland with his 9-year-old son Filip, another fan. Sporting a Ferrari cap, Filip said he was not yet a petrolhead, but that was only because he was too young to drive.
While the BBC was keeping mum on its plans the word among fans was that the car to be raced was a 1960s streamliner dubbed the Pumpkin Seed, holder of many a world speed record set at the Bonneville Salt Flats at the same time our own Burt Munro was smashing records with the world's fastest Indian.
Nor was the Beeb giving away any clues about when or where filming would take place. The council's permit applies only between noon and 5pm each day this week.
Rumours of the stars' imminent arrival swept up and down the beach, especially after two hire vans checked out the sand at Hukatere. Shortly afterwards two empty buses pulled up, the drivers claiming they were undergoing testing. If that was the case it must have been the buses' ability to remain parked that was being tested.
Increasingly anxious TV reporters scanned the horizon as their deadlines for the 6pm news drew nearer; TVNZ even hired a chopper to swoop up the beach but found no trace of the mystery film crew. By 5pm a light drizzle set in and even the keenest fans began to drift away. Some of them, Trinda and Chayne included, vowed they'd be back.
While fans were waiting on the beach, Top Gear's presenters were reportedly racing an America's Cup yacht from the Coromandel to Northland.
