By Robin Judkins ONZM
Sixteen weeks ago I broke my left leg while feeding my daughter's rabbits in my back garden. With ACC treating this as a gardening accident, gardening instantly become the most dangerous occupation in New Zealand! They're wrong of course, I wasn't gardening, I was farming.
Everyone in Canterbury knows of my opposition to the dairy farming and water extraction that is drying up our rivers and polluting our ground water. What they don't know is that I'm breeding carnivorous rabbits which I plan to release on the Canterbury Plains this summer. This new hardy breed of cow eating carnivores will breed like flies and rapidly devour the growing herds of dairy cows. Whoopee! What a plan!
What I'd forgotten of course was that rabbits are bi-polar. That's right, bi-polar or maybe they're ambidextrous. Whatever, they can't distinguish between cow meat and human flesh. As I offered them the fresh fillet of beef they lunged for my exposed throat. If it hadn't been for my wicket keeping experience in the under 14's I'd never have survived.
Unfortunately, as I threw myself sideways I slipped on a piece of wood and broke my leg.
Enter Steve Gurney: Twelve weeks into my recovery programme I met with Steve Gurney on Sumner Beach. He was much taken with my carnivorous rabbit conversions and had three suggestions:
First: that I wear an Easter Bunny suit while feeding the rabbits - of course he had one I could borrow.
Second: In order to protect my brother Tom and my nephew Oliver, who both work in the dairy industry, from carnivorous rabbit attack I should wear a particularly attractive aftershave which the rabbits would then associate with the feeder rather than the food. Steve happened to have plenty of this, more than enough for me, my brother and my nephew.
Third: That to take my mind off the rabbits and to make my recovery more interesting we should do the 2011 Speight's Coast to Coast, together, as a Veteran Team.
I must say that I liked suggestions one and two very much - Steve's my size, the suit would fit, and in a previous life I was briefly employed to clean a three level underground septic tank in an Australian ski resort in the summer. Smell is subjective.
But the third?
Look at it like this, said Steve. You remember how much it hurt when you broke your leg? How you screamed and screamed and none of your neighbours heard or cared? Well, Coast to Coast has got to be better than that, hasn't it?
So I'm in.
We're in.
We're team No. 703.
Why don't you join us? We're not that hard to beat.
Regards Robin Judkins
703V Kayaker Steve Gurney - age 43 from Redcliffs, Competitor, Nutter
703V Runner Robin Judkins - age 61 from Sumner, Race Director, Straight Guy
P.S. We had an earthquake and the course got shorter! And easier.
Regards,
Robin Judkins ONZM
Race Director
Speight's Coast to Coast - 11th & 12th February 2011
