by Helen Martin
People speculate on how to get four elephants into a fridge, how to eat an elephant and what to do about acknowledging the elephant in the room, but how do you get a 400 kg corrugated iron elephant from Helensville to its new home in the Wairarapa without damaging it?
Sculptor Jeff Thomson, no stranger to the conundrum of transporting large art works around the country, including corrugated iron beasts, reports that his elephant was loaded by forklift onto a truck by local company Eurovision Building Removals during peak traffic hour in Helensville (don’t laugh, there is such athing), secured into place with trucking straps then transported to Greytown by Masterton company, McAuley’s Transport. Logistics.Manager Daniel Maxwell says the job was all in a day’s work, while the truck driver was very happy to move the elephant that day, he told Jeff’s employee Alan, and took plenty of photos to record the event, evidence for his entry into a running competition at work to see who gets to transport the most unusual freight.
Jeff’s elephant ready for its journey. (Photo Shona Cameron).
