Let it never be said that the Kiwis don’t know how to party. We’ve all thrown some pretty cool keggers over the years, but when’s the last time that you created a small landmass specifically for the purpose of getting wasted? Yeah, that’s what I thought.
That’s what a group of enterprising New Zealand revelers did for New Year’s this year, and all in the name of skirting laws concerning public consumption of alcohol. The group of men built what was essentially a tiny island—a giant mound of sand and earth—in the middle of the Tairua estuary on the Coromandel peninsula on Sunday afternoon. They pulled it off by waiting until low tide to trek far out to their chosen location, and then built their own little sandbar before the tide returned. They then installed a picnic table and coolers, and partied on their tiny sanctuary throughout New Year’s Eve and day, according to the BBC. It seems that the group reasoned their cramped little fiefdom would be immune from local law, by virtue of being in “international waters.”
The local law states that there is a ban on public drinking, with a fine in place of $250 (£130; US$180) or the threat of arrest. Police, however, reacted in a way that can only make you chuckle, and reminds one of the laid-back depiction of the neighboring Australians (sorry to compare the two, Kiwis) in a classic episode of The Simpsons. According to BBC, the local police commander praised the group for its “creative thinking,” and said “If I had known about it, I probably would have joined them.”
The BBC image of the group was posted to a local Facebook group, Tairua ChitChat, by a man named David Saunders, who said simply, “It was great to see some Kiwis having a bit of fun.”
So the next time you’ve run out of places to drink, remember this: You can always build your own little booze island during low tide.