A posse of bad guys (Davey Fife, left, Julian Gielen and Lance Gleeson) riding into town during last year's Wild West Fest. Photo / Peter de Graaf
Not many festivals include robberies and shoot-outs in their list of attractions, but then Waimamaku's Wild West Fest is no ordinary festival.
Once a year the normally sleepy South Hokianga town is transformed into an outpost of the Wild West, where cowboys and bad guys on horseback stage gun battles
on the main street, bandits hold up passing motorists and locals compete to see who can throw a beer keg the greatest distance.
There are also cheese-rolling races (although with the cheese factory long closed yellow tyres are used instead of cheese wheels), market stalls, live music (country and western, obviously), competitions, a firefighters' challenge and lots of kai.
And it's all going to happen again on Saturday, this time with a renewed focus on the wearable arts contest and parade, which will be themed 'Fallen angels of the Wild West'.
One of the many quirks of the festival is that much of the action takes place on SH12, which means traffic is halted occasionally for cheese-rolling heats or shoot-outs.
