Waipawa’s famous yellow duck, Pawa, will be making his return from retirement
and will no doubt ruffle a few feathers at Saturday’s Blossom Festival
Parade.
“Pawa has been a shunned duck lately,” says his creator Jan Gosling.
He was taken down from his perch as Waipawa’s icon for street widening
over a year ago, but has never been returned.
He has been languishing in the backyard of secondhand shop Country Traders,
and is looking a little worse for wear.
However, Mrs Gosling is busy preparing him for the journey and is confident
he will be looking his best in time for the parade.
In the meantime, he has been mounted on a trailer, ready to be towed to Hastings.
The suggestion to enter the Blossom festival Parade came from the Waipawa Chamber
of Commerce, who originally commissioned Mrs Gosling to make him nine years
ago.
“I accepted the project because it was fun and a challenge. Making a
huge stylized duck out of fibrous cement was an entirely new experience.”
She says.
On Parade day, expect Pawa to be accompanied by a pair of “ducky’
fairies and hundreds of little, orange beaked yellow ducks. Robin Barker of
Waipawa’s Musical and Drama Society has put together a sound track to
do Pawa proud. Rubber Ducky and Disco Duck are just two of the many tunes Pawa
and his friends will flutter their feathers to.
