- Lifelong canoe enthusiast Adam Farquharson borrowed his friend Mark’s 407kg prize-winning giant pumpkin, hollowed it out and transformed it into a floating canoe he nicknamed Cinderella
- Dressed in a sailor costume, Adam successfully paddled the giant gourd 1.6 kilometres down the Tumut River
- The quirky adventure quickly made Adam a local celebrity
Here he shares his story in his own words.
Gliding through the calm waters in my canoe, I was in my element.
What a day for it, I smiled to myself, as the sun shone brightly above.
I’d been canoeing with my parents, Brett and Lesley, from the age of two.
It was a passion I carried into adulthood, and I loved organising days on the water with my wife, Alana, and our girls, Lara, 11, and Bonnie, eight.
‘My wife was always on board.’
No matter what crazy adventures I dreamt up for us to have a crack at, Alana was always on board.
When we married in 2011, we did away with tradition and tied the knot inside a cave instead.
‘This is a first,’ our guests laughed, but most had come to expect that I loved doing quirky things that made others smile.
So when I came up with the idea to paddle down the river in a pumpkin, Alana didn’t think it was out of the ordinary.
‘You better start growing it then,’ she chuckled.
I got to work sowing seeds.
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Sadly, they never grew to more than the size of a softball before rotting.
Then in March this year, I saw a post on Facebook from my mate Mark, who was growing a giant gourd.
‘The pumpkin weighed over 400 kilos.’
After more than four months, his pumpkin weighed over 400 kilos.
Naming it Tormund, after a character in Game of Thrones, he entered it in the Sydney Royal Easter Show.
Tipping the scales at 407 kilos and at roughly 75cm tall, it was the biggest pumpkin grown in Australia this year, earning Mark first prize.
When I learned he planned on using the prized pumpkin as stock feed, it gave me an idea.
‘Can I borrow it for a canoe first?’ I asked Mark.
‘Sure, mate!’ he laughed.
Sharing my plans to row it down the Tumut River in NSW, to Alana, she laughed.
‘Let’s just hope it floats,’ she teased.
Next, I shared my plan on our local Facebook page, inviting people to watch.
‘1000 people cheered me on.’
The following day, on a sunny April morning, I arrived at the Tumut racecourse – my launch site – amazed to see about 1000 people there to cheer me on.
Mark met me with his pumpkin, which I renamed Cinderella.
He’d already scooped out the inside, so all I had to do was hop in, dressed in my sailor costume, of course!
The pulp was quite slimy, but I didn’t let that deter me as I got to work paddling.
It took 20 minutes to reach the Pioneer Bridge, around 1.6km from where I started.
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Covered in pumpkin, I got out to chat to the crowd and was amazed to learn some had come from as far as Sydney, four hours away, to watch my ludicrous feat!
Afterwards, my family and I celebrated with a barbecue at Alana’s parents’ farm, and we brought the pumpkin for my in-laws’ cattle to feed on.
‘I still get recognised in the street.’
Four months on, I still get recognised in the street.
‘Look, it’s Popeye the Pumpkin Man!’ people joke.
When I joked to Alana that my next endeavour was to use zucchinis as waterskis, she just rolled her eyes and chuckled.
I’m a big believer in enjoying life while you can.
You might as well go big or gourd home!
This story was published in 2024.
