Missing cat's 275km journey from Dunedin to Wanaka

Eddie the cat wandered into a removal van in Dunedin on Monday and was reunited with his owner Di Strang in Wanaka yesterday afternoon. Photo / Kerrie Waterworth, Otago Daily Times

By Kerrie Waterworth

Open doors are hard to resist if you are a curious young cat, but an open door into a removal truck can have far-reaching consequences.

Eddie, 2, went missing from his Maori Hill home in Dunedin on Monday night after a removal truck, which had been parked outside the neighbour's house during the afternoon, drove away.

Yesterday morning, Eddie appeared outside the Wanaka hospice warehouse next to Wanaka storage on Ballantyne Rd.

Hospice warehouse manager Tracey Morrow said: "As soon as we opened the doors, Eddie walked straight in, laid down in the sunshine and started purring as if to say 'Hi, I'm home', but he wasn't."

Eddie had a tag with a name and cellphone number on it.

"I rang the number and said to the woman, 'I've got your cat, Eddie, do you want to come and pick him up?'"

The owner said she could not come straight away but asked for the address.

"When I said Ballantyne Rd she asked me whereabouts in Dunedin was that? I said, we're in Wanaka."

Eddie's owner, Di Strang, said she guessed immediately what had happened.

She rang the removal company to confirm the truck had driven to Wanaka that night.

"I said, 'You took my cat', and they said, 'We don't transport cats', and I said, 'I know - that's the problem'."

Strang said after failing to find someone who could bring Eddie back to Dunedin she drove the 275km from Dunedin to Wanaka and picked up the wayward moggie from VetEnt Wanaka, where he was being minded.

''He was very happy to see me, stretching out his paws and purring madly.''

Strang said despite Eddie's unexpected road trip, she has no plans to curtail his curiosity or penchant for sleeping in cars.

''He originally came from Gore, so he has a bit of spirit,'' she said.

Strang drove Eddie back to Dunedin yesterday afternoon to be reunited with her husband, three children and their other family cat, which she described as a couch potato that never went anywhere.