Rural NZ town takes aim for annual Gumboot Day
16 Oct 2008
The rural North Island town of Taihape is bracing itself for a flurry of unusual flying objects when competitors take part in the indigenous New Zealand sport of gumboot throwing.
Gumboot Day on October 25 (New Zealand’s Labour holiday weekend) will see the return of the annual event after a brief absence, and the 2008 festival is again attracting national and international interest.
Kiwi boot speak
Gumboots are the Kiwi equivalent of Wellington boots, galoshes or waders - rubber boots worn by farm and outdoor workers, and a perennial favourite of Kiwi children.
Competitions to see who could throw a gumboot the furthest began in Taihape in 1985, and the town now markets itself as New Zealand's 'Gumboot Throwing Capital'.
Competition rules
Regulations for the competition include details of the boot's height, weight, size and length. Gumboot throwers range from five-year-olds to the over-50s and the winner carries off a Golden Gumboot trophy.
Although Gumboot Day is the acknowledged annual event, gumboots can be tossed skyward on any day of the year in Taihape, thanks to an official gumboot-throwing lane located behind the town's main shopping centre.
The unusual local attraction was designed to entice travellers to stop in Taihape en route through the central North Island, and now the town has also earned itself a reputation for good cafés and eateries.
Kiwiana
Taihape's permanent Gumboot Throwing Lane in the 'Outback' will be the hub of festival activities for the 2008 event, and the town's main street will be decorated with painted gumboots.
Apart from attempts to break the gumboot throwing record, the event will have a strong 'Kiwiana' flavour with a local street market, New Zealand music, games, gumboot marches and a Fred Dagg-look-a-like contest.
Fred Dagg is a fictional Kiwi character created by New Zealand comedian John Clarke in the 1970s. Dagg was a stereotypical farmer clad in a black singlet and gumboots who hailed from Taihape
World equivalents
The UK equivalent of gumboot throwing is wellie wanging, or wellie throwing, which originated in Yorkshire. Competitors are required to hurl a Wellington boot as far as possible within boundary lines from a standing or running start.
A variation requires participants to launch the wellie from the end of their foot as if they were kicking off a pair of shoes.
Finland also hosts an annual boot-throwing world championship along the same lines as the New Zealand competition.
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