Publications
Partners
Talk about a bumpy ride! A cat named Kooks survived the road trip of a lifetime when it got stuck inside a car for a seven-hour drive from Cape Town to the Eastern Cape.
A group of five retired ladies who accidentally catnapped Kooks got the shock of the lives when they made the discovery. Rose Prew (68) tells YOU she and four friends departed for a holiday to St Francis Bay without realising the cat was hiding in a compartment underneath her car.
The five dames drove the kitty all the way from Rondebosch in Cape Town to St Francis Bay in the Eastern Cape without suspecting a thing.
Rose’s neighbour, Celeste Perry, panicked when she couldn’t find her cat but luckily Kooks was wearing a Bluetooth collar that enabled her to see she was headed for St Francis Bay.
Rose became aware of what was happening when Celeste took to social media to ask if anyone had recently travelled from Rondebosch to St Francis, hoping that someone would help her find her beloved kitty.
“I saw in a message on our street WhatsApp group that the cat was missing, but I didn’t immediately connect the dots – until I realised the cat had been making the same stops as us along the route,” Rose says.
She and her friends stopped along the way five times, taking breaks of between 20 and 30 minutes, but the cat was nowhere to be seen. Much to her dismay, she says they drove about 700km with Kooks under the car. “I felt sick when I discovered I was responsible for the cat’s disappearance. I can’t believe she never got out, there must’ve been lots of cars and she was scared.”
READ MORE| It's Freddie Purrcury! Internet goes gaga for cat who looks like Freddie Mercury
When Rose and her friends realised the cat had travelled with them, they formed search parties with some locals in St Francis to start looking for Kooks. Rose also took her car to a local tyre fitment centre to see if the cat wasn’t stuck in the engine somewhere, but she couldn’t bring herself to look, afraid the cat might’ve been injured.
Turns out the cat had already left the car by then. “Celeste arrived later and called for the cat near where the GPS tracker showed it was, and Kooks came running,” Rose says.
Celeste says it’s been wonderful having Kooks back. She and her husband, Peter, have been going through a tough time since their restaurant in Gardens in Cape Town, The Fat Cactus, recently burnt down and Kooks has brought them both comfort.
Rose is also an animal lover and she and Celeste have stayed in contact following the “catnapping”. Every year in March, she and her friends go on a trip together but next year they’ll be sure to check the car before hitting the road, she says.
