What a rocky voyage it’s been! When a cat called Kooks were trapped inside a vehicle for the duration of a seven-hour travel from Cape Town to the Eastern Cape, he managed to live.
When a group of five old women who had mistakenly kidnapped Kooks realized what they had done, they were in for the shock of their lives. At her letter to YOU, Rose Prew (68) describes how she and four companions left for a vacation in St Francis Bay, not realizing that the cat was sheltering in a compartment under their vehicle.
All the way from Rondebosch, Cape Town, to St Francis Bay, Eastern Cape, the five dames were completely unaware of what was going on with the cat.
Rose’s next-door neighbor, Celeste Perry, became alarmed when she couldn’t locate her cat, Kooks. Fortunately, Kooks was wearing a Bluetooth collar, which allowed Celeste to see that Kooks was on her way to St Francis Bay.
It wasn’t until Celeste turned to social media to inquire whether anybody had lately traveled from Rondebosch to St Francis that Rose got aware of what was going on. She was hopeful that someone could assist her in locating her long-lost cat.
The cat had gone missing, according to a post on our neighborhood WhatsApp group, but Rose didn’t immediately connect the dots – until she realized the cat had been stopping at the same locations as us along the route, which she discovered.
Despite the fact that she and her pals stopped five times along the trip, taking breaks ranging from 20 to 30 minutes each, the cat was nowhere to be seen. She claims that they drove almost 700 kilometers with Kooks under the vehicle, to to her dismay. “When I realized I was responsible for the cat’s disappearance, I felt terrible to my stomach. My heart breaks for her because there must have been a swarm of automobiles and she must have been terrified.”
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The moment Rose and her companions realized that the cat had accompanied them on their journey, they formed search groups with some residents in St Francis to begin their hunt for Kooks. Also, Rose brought her vehicle to a nearby tyre fitting center to investigate if the cat wasn’t caught somewhere in the engine, but she couldn’t bring herself to look since she was scared the cat could have been wounded.
It turned out that the cat had already gotten out of the vehicle at that point. Kooks came rushing when Celeste arrived later and screamed for him near where the GPS tracker had indicated he was,” Rose explains.
Celeste expresses her delight at having Kooks back in her life. She and her husband, Peter, have been going through a difficult time because their restaurant, The Fat Cactus, in Gardens, Cape Town, was recently destroyed by fire, and Kooks has provided them with consolation.
Rose is also an animal lover, and she and Celeste have maintained communication in the aftermath of the “catnapping.” Every year in March, she and her pals embark on a road trip together, but she adds that next year they would make a point of inspecting the vehicle before hitting the road.