Moo-rooned no more

Friday, a cow, swam to uninhabited Karamuramu Island, in the Hauraki Gulf, after being swept down the Wairoa River in southeast Auckland during the ‘Tasman Tempest’ storm. The 6.5ha island, locally known as Red Rock, is 1.5km offshore at its closest point. Three men who work at McCallum Bros quarry there were surprised when they turned up for work on March 10 to find cow hoofprints on the shore.  She became “part of the furniture”, waiting on the shore for her 7am breakfast of hay and standing on high points to watch the men work. She was shortly barged back to the mainland. Quarry worker Gordon Hall says he and his workmates miss Friday but “we had to get her off since there’s not much grass on the island and you can’t just give her hay all the time”.