Brian Rogers Rogers Rabbits www.sunlive.co.nz

Summer's here and I know what you are all thinking. Wouldn't it be cool to walk on mud?

No-one has really mastered the art of walking on mud.

Some people have been walking on water for a couple of thousand years. That's all old-hat and the odd frontier explorer figured out that snow shoes could keep a bloke plodding on the mountains in winter.

But really, has anyone figured out how to cross the Maketu Estuary at low tide, or stride out on the Welcome Bay mudflats, or sneak up on a pipi off Tanners Point?

Mud shoe
Well, maybe. My family folklore has it that an old mate of my Dad, Colin Lee, invented the world's first mud shoe. Colin was one of those legendary figures of my upbringing. He devised a pair of mudshoes made from a couple of planks of plywood and a pair of dog collars on each, to strap onto the feet.

The idea was that the Lee Mudshoe would propel a flounder fisherman across the vast expanses of the harbour mudflats, without the Mudshoe Pilot sinking to oblivion in the quicksands of misadventure.

Marvelling innovation
As a young fella we used to marvel at the innovation of the dog collar mudshoe invention hanging on the basement wall at Paine St.

Pioneering
I spent many moments pondering the pioneering spirit of my father and his friend, inspired to conquer the vastness of the salt marshes with an ingenious invention that incorporated the best of Kiwi ingenuity with some particularly flat wood. I have no idea what the dogs thought of the concept, except that they must have left feeling particularly naked while their collars were requisitioned for the greater good.

I mean, how proud would a Huntaway be, locked away in his farm kennel, thinking: 'My wardrobe has been instrumental in helping civilisation take one small step for man, one small…hang on, what was that? Felt like a flea. Let me scratch it with this leg, yes, over, over a bit… ”.

Anyway, let's assume the dogs were down with the concept, and lived a full and happy life as a result. And that the mudshoes became a worldwide phenomenon, a sort of Microsoft of the sixties, and propelled Colin Lee and my dad to fame and fortune and the cover of ‘MudMasters' magazine.

Alas, the MudShoe never really caught on. In fact, the Colin Lee MudShoe, as I understand, was bogged down with a few technical issues.

Bogged down
Mainly, that it got bogged down. Okay, so the MudShoe was a complete disaster, leaving it's test pilot, either Colin or Mick, anchored by the forces of suction, flailing their arms like a windmill, completely helpless and un-moving, and presumably, unable to make it back to the dinghy and the crate of DB.

So like the Ford Edson, another potentially ground-breaking device was mothballed, after failing fundamental road tests.

The MudShoe languished in the basement of our Judea home for many years. Even the loyal Huntaways began to doubt the future of their dog collars playing an integral part of modern day mudflat transport.

Indeed, the MudShoe eventually was dispatched in a garage sale without reaching its full potential. These were the Leyland P76s of the footwear world.

A brilliant concept, way ahead of their time, but only a few ever really realised their true potential.

Bogged down by a simple rule of physics: Mud sucks.

The lesson
But I never forgot the lesson of the Lee MudShoe. That is, think big, live the dream, and try it. What is the worst that could happen? Four dogs could feel naked and an irate flounder fisherman could be left windmilling in the seagrass. So it didn't work. But not for lack of innovation and testing. For every hundred complete failures like the Lee Mudshoe, there's one brilliant success that seem so obvious, we wonder why no-one thought
of it before.

Never give up
There have been various other attempts worldwide, include the almost successful ‘Splatcher' and my knowledgeable estuarine travelling friends tell me there's some interesting stuff to be googled on the Magic of the Swatchways, mud patterns and mudhorse fishing. Which all sounds like a subject for another day.

Until then, never give up on a concept. The first or second or 15th attempt may not be the right ones, but sooner or later you will find the answer. It's the Kiwi way.

And unless you are running for the leadership of the Labour party, who must feel they're wading but sinking deeper into the political quagmire; success is just around the next corner.

Our thanks to Jen and Ken, for their invaluable research and experience of mud-related transport systems.