Photo / Lennaine Pieterse
Scorching summer days and hot sticky nights are bringing out the best in Kiwi ingenuity.
Yesterday, as much of the North Island sweltered under high temperatures in the late 20s, we enjoyed the story of how three mates built their own swimming pool in half an hour using only a nailgun, timber and plastic wrapping sheet, photos of which were shared around the world.
Today, the heat kept coming. And throughout the Kiwi summer, so did the genius.
There's the industrial approach to vege preparation, as three men use a chainsaw, spade and fork to prepare a summer salad. There's also a trough-turned-swimming pool, the tray of a ute transformed into a paddling pool and the shade-covered barge made from old cool store panels. Not to mention some perilous water slides, including one nick-named the "slip and bleed".
Read more:
The world's most extreme waterslides
All are entries in the Make It Mammoth competition run by the Mammoth Supply Company and the Alternative Commentary Collective. Those who upload photos and videos with the hashtag #makeitmammoth can win VIP tickets for themselves and 10 mates to the Black Caps' one day international against Australia on Wednesday next week.
Kerikeri man Daniel Galvin is among those to share his summer fun creation, a home-made water slide with an airbed-come-ramp to propel riders into the air.
The slide was put together when about 40 friends visited on New Year's Eve.
"We talked about doing it ... one [of my friends] is a farmer from the Waikato and he was like 'oh, yeah you can go to RD1 [farm supply store] and get some black polythene, no problem'."
How much air-time each user got depended on "how hard" they went. The footage shows one user flying higher than most; that was his mate from Wellington, Todd Smith, Mr Galvin said.
"He was hitting it harder than anyone, he's always been the edgy one, he likes pushing it."
Despite the intensity of some of the slides, injuries were minimal, he said. A couple of bruises and small cut to the head were the extent of injuries.
"It was just a good bit of Kiwi fun."
At the zoo, keeping cool was more laidback. Ice-blocks were on hand for Auckland Zoo residents, and elephants Anjalee and Burma enjoyed time in their pool this afternoon.
They'll likely return much of the rest of this week. Highs in the city of sails have reached 28C each of the past two days, and that temperature was expected to be matched again today.
Metservice meteorologist Stephen Glassey said subtropical air over the North Island would remain. In fact, even though the temperatures were expected to dip a degree in Auckland over the next three days, higher humidity would mean little relief.
"It's going to be pretty sticky. It may feel worse."
