BEE LINE: The thieves made a bee line for the most valuable kauri gum, leaving broken glass and empty shelves.
Normally, when John Johnson thinks he hears a nocturnal possum, he goes after it with a gun. He didn't do that on Saturday night, and was mightily relieved that he hadn't.
It wasn't a possum he heard at around 8.30 but two thieves, both wearing balaclavas, who used a crowbar
to break through a wooden door then smash the glass of a display cabinet at Waiharara's Gumdiggers' Park, helping themselves to gum he gave a retail value of more than $30,000.
They threw a large piece of gum at Mr Johnson, who lives on the premises, when he confronted them and barged past him, fleeing in a car. Mr Johnson was unable to get a registration number as the tail lights disappeared in the distance, heading north.
The theft was devastating, he said yesterday, not only for the value of the gum but the fact that it had been part of a collection he had amassed over 20 years. The intruders had known what they were looking for, he added, as he awaited the arrival of a police forensic officer yesterday.
"What they've taken is irreplaceable," he said.
