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Home / New Zealand

Fluffy hitcher a cute surprise for family

NZ Herald
22 Oct, 2012 04:30 PM2 mins to read

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Heleni Dawber, 6, says Axle is settling in well after his motorway adventure.. Photo / Steven McNicholl

Heleni Dawber, 6, says Axle is settling in well after his motorway adventure.. Photo / Steven McNicholl

Tina Dawber reckons she hated cats before a kitten hitched a ride on the Auckland motorway in the undercarriage of her people-mover.

Nine days ago Mrs Dawber and her children Heleni, 6, and Ocean, 4, visited her brother in Clendon where the children played with a litter of kittens.

On the ride home to Mangere Bridge she heard a mewling sound.

"We all started to panic ... I started slowing down the car but we couldn't find anything."

She took the Southwestern Motorway home, 13km trip.

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Five hours later she asked her husband Alex, who'd returned home from work, to check the car again.

He found a grey and white tabby sitting in a pocket by the axle.

"We couldn't call him Front Suspension, so we thought Axle would do," he joked.

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His wife said there was no question the family would be adopting the cat, which was about a month old.

"I hated cats and then I saw Axle's face and I fell in love. I think he was meant to be with us," she said.

The kitten hasn't given up his risky habits - he likes crawling up on to tyres, she said.

Heleni, 6, is smitten with the kitten.

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New Zealand

Clucky hen's lucky ducklings

16 Oct 10:24 PM

"It's a nice and smart cat because he wasn't on the bit that spins."

And she says Axle is settling in to his new home.

"He was a bit of a scaredy cat before; not any more, he's fun."

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