Put down that surfboard – Eden Park is not going to be transformed into a suburban surf break and you can’t buy “bit-fishy coin” from your local marine store.
Cheeky pranks celebrating April Fools’ Day today had Kiwis second-guessing everything they read today.
Auckland’s premier sports venue Eden Park was touted as the next venue for pro surf competition and we heard Jane Campion’s Oscar-winning film The Power of the Dog would be followed up by the purfect sequel – The Power of the Cat.
There were marine deals offering tampons as Covid-19 “snorkel filters” and a well-known road safety campaigner revealing he had been pulled over for breaking the speed limit.
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The Department of Conservation got in on the pranking tradition by announcing it would be closing all tramping huts over winter to boost sales for tents and outdoor equipment.
The article in the online tramping guide Wilderness said long drops would be open “for emergency accommodation” and suggested traffic lights would soon be installed on some tracks to ease congestion.
It also broke the news a man had “got wet” when he went swimming.
What some thought was surely an April Fool’s joke was the opening of an 11-course degustation experience offered by KFC in Sydney.
But the sliced kingfish (delicately crumbed with Zinger flavour on top of yogurt slaw with lobster) is a real dish and really will be served up this weekend to diners at the three-day event at fine dining restaurant Nel.
A reported 20,000 people are on the waitlist to try the degustation experience.
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What won’t be happening anytime soon is the flooding of Eden Park with one million litres of water.
Keen surfers could have been excited by the news that Auckland’s premier sports stadium Eden Park was hoping to host the next World Surf League Tournament.
Eden Park chief executive Nick Sautner said Eden Park had put in a bid to host as a way of increasing revenue.
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“It’s not every day you can drop in and surf at a stadium. But our venue is always keen to dive headfirst into the radical and unconventional,” he said.
“Due to this event’s unique nature, we anticipate it will generate a significant surge in tourism for Auckland – something needed more than ever following a tough few years.”
News that water would flood the stadium – lined with a compostable waterproof membrane of course – would have had nearby residents choking on their morning coffee.
The outlandish article, written by “April Fulton”, washed out the dreams of urban surfers right at the end – with reference to midday April 1 – when any chance of hoaxes and pranks officially end.
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