Hitch-hiking cat Kooma comes to owner Gillian Dennis' call after anxious days-long search

Gillian Dennis reunited with her lost cat Kooma in Napier. PHOTO / Paul Taylor

Just when Kooma appeared to have vanished forever, the cat came back.

That was the happy ending to the adventure of the Waipukurau moggy that began when Kooma hitched a ride to Napier on a Conroy's furniture removal truck last Friday and bolted into the Onekawa Industrial District as soon as someone opened the door.

Owner Gillian Dennis began searching everywhere, distributing dozens of fliers across the suburbs in the hope that someone had seen 10-year-old Kooma.

Yesterday she branched off to Tamatea, hopeful Kooma may have recognised some of the surroundings of a former home from the days when she first came to Hawke's Bay after being rescued, with a sister stray kitten, from Pureora Forest where Ms Dennis worked in the Central North Island.

It took an early-afternoon photographic rendezvous yesterday with Hawke's Bay Today photographer Paul Taylor to start drawing the hunt to a successful conclusion. He suggested that by fate he would no sooner have taken the photo and left that the wayward and timid Kooma would reappear.

Moments after he had departed Ms Dennis inquired at Tradezone, to where Kooma had been seen heading on Friday at the corner of Austin St and Lipton Pl.

It was only then that she learned that while Kooma hadn't been seen since, there had been some unusual goings-on, such as an alarm being set off and something unexplainedly falling on to a fitting on the premises.

She spent the next few minutes calling, before a staff member heard the much-awaited "meow", even if it was still some time before the shaking Kooma could be coaxed from beneath a display to indulge in some of her favourite Jimbo's and get into a cage.

Ms Dennis was overwhelmed with how "lovely and understanding" people were wanting to help find her cat.

"It's a miracle," she said as she prepared for the trip home to Central Hawke's Bay, where Kooma's twin-sister, Bongo, had been biding her time at a cattery until Kooma's return.

Feline reunion aside, there could be some prolonged affirmation of the cats' role around the home. As it happens, Sunday is International Hug Your Cat Day.