BRAS, BOOTS AND BIKES

New Zealanders let it all hang out - on rural fences. They display vast collections of used shoes, bras, bicycles, and even skins of feral pigs, on roadside fences that have become tourist attractions. In many parts of the US and a few in Canada, old shoes decorate trees instead of fences.
We first learned about this strange craze when we read a story headed Pig-skin fence turning holidaymakers' heads in the New Zealand Herald. It said that about 30 skins of wild pigs draped along a fence at Tahora, between Stratford and Taumarunui, was raising the eyebrows of travellers along the North Island's Forgotten World Highway.
Bruce Herbert, owner of the nearby Bushlands Holiday Park, said the skins began appearing about a month earlier. "It's local pig hunters showing off their pig hunting skills," he said. New skins were often added, as many as five or six in a single day.
It's unlikely that the skins will suffer the same fate as the 200 bras ripped off in broad daylight from a South Island fence.
Reporting their disappearance, Dave Smith wrote in the Otago Daily Times: "CARDRONA. Brazen brassiere bandits have uplifted one of the Cardrona Valley's tourism icons. More than 200 bras, right down to the last D cup, have been snipped off the bra fence, leaving just posts, wire and rabbit netting.
"Waiorau Snow Farm owner John Lee was alerted to the undergarment theft just hours after it happened. Yesterday, Mr Lee could only stand and stare at bare fence wires and ponder who might have done the dastardly deed."
Lee posted a $500 reward for information leading to the culprits. He said most of the bras had been left by passing travellers, some from as far away as Germany, the United States and Israel. A visiting American minister had once blessed the fence.
Loss of the bras didn't worry Lee, because 280 more garments had been hung on the fence, "from functional sports models to enticing lace evening wear."
Returning to the North Island, near New Plymouth a bike fence forms the frontage for The Missing Leg backpacker's hostel in Egmont Village. That too has attracted the attention of thieves.
"Fence owner Brian Garrett says he's lost 30 bikes over the 12 months the fence has been up, with some bold thieves stealing them in broad daylight," says a Taranaki TV website.
In the South Island, a fence near the Rakaia Gorge, on the road to Christchurch, displays hundreds of pairs of discarded shoes. "We'd backed to the road verge to inspect and photograph it," says the author of a picture-story posted by justtourpictures.com. "We were shortly joined by three more cars and a tour bus.
"The story has it a local farmer found a pair of shoes, possibly dropped from a passing car and hung them on his fence in case the owner returned for them. Some wag thought this amusing and added further old shoes to the fence. Others followed suit, and the fence now bows under the weight of hundreds of pairs of old footwear."

Just East of Burke's Pass in South Canterbury (en route to Queenstown from Christchurch) is a growing phenomenon on a farmer's fence, the Shoe Fence. Over 1000 (well, 1182 at last count) shoes, sandals, ski boots, gumboots and flippers are strung along a good old 8 strand fence. It all started so they say when a pair of moccasins were left for a shearer as he had left his behind.
- Message from Ralph Davies, posted by KiwiNews.com

Americans prefer to use their old shoes to decorate not fences, but trees. "Shoe trees may be the greatest embodiment of the American spirit you can find on the highway (free of admission charge, anyway)," says Roadside America.
"A shoe tree starts with one dreamer tossing his or her footwear-of-old high into the sky, to catch on an out-of-reach branch. It usually ends there, unseen and neglected by others. But on rare occasions, that first pair of shoes triggers a shoe tossing cascade.
"Soon, teens are gathering up their old Adidas and Sauconys, families are driving out after church with Dad's Reeboks and grandma's Keds. The shoe tree blooms with polymer beauty. A work of art like this may last for generations, tracing our history by our sneakers... as long as the tree doesn't die.
"On Highway 50 near Middle Gate, Nevada, a lone cottonwood stands, clotted with hundreds of shoes. One tipster tells us the first pair was thrown during a wedding night argument by a young couple; later, their children's shoes were added to the bough. Whatever its origins, the tree now seems to suck up all the discarded footwear in the county.
"Another lone shoe tree is reported south of Alturas, California... The tree features scores of sneaker pairs dangling from branches, a strange ritual by bored locals. Not a fully developed shoe tree, but far from anywhere. A shrunken old desert tree near Vidal, California... bears both shoes and a variety of shirts."
If you want to read about and see photos of many other US shoe trees, visit Roadside America's excellent website.

Riding past the 'bra fence' was a bizarre and surreal experience. I was incredulous as to why someone would pin their bra to a roadside fence and who started it all? Anyway, as you can see from the news article below, they are all gone now. No doubt though, those wacky Kiwis will start up another someplace else. All I can say is there are some big women swinging low right now........


Bold as bras . . . ripped off in broad daylight
By Dave Smith Otago Daily Times
Cardrona: Brazen brassiere bandits have uplifted one of the Cardrona Valley's tourism icons.
More than 200 bras, right down to the last D cup, have been snipped off the bra fence, leaving just posts, wire and rabbit netting.
Waiorau Snow Farm owner John Lee was alerted to the undergarment theft just hours after it happened.
Yesterday, Mr Lee could only stand and stare at bare fence wires and ponder who might have done the dastardly deed.
He suspected the bras had been stolen between 8am and 10am yesterday, as snow farm staff had seen them there in the morning.
Whoever took the bras may have a short-lived freedom, as Mr Lee has posted a $500 reward for information leading to the culprits.
"I will donate $500 towards the Cure Kids cause," he said.
Earlier this year, the fence had been blessed by a visiting American minister.
Bras had been appearing on the fence from just after Christmas until February, when about 130 disappeared.
Mr Lee was unperturbed as more bras were hung on the fence, reaching about 280 bras, from functional sports models to enticing lace evening wear.
There had been the occasional theft, but nothing untoward.
Since the bras first appeared, Mr Lee estimated he had given more than 80 radio, television, newspaper and magazine interviews to media around the globe.
Most of the bras had been left by passing travellers but many had arrived in the mail from places like Napier and Timaru, Colorado, Germany, the United States and Israel.
"Never anything from the cities like Auckland or Wellington," he quipped. "I had a lovely green one there from Germany.
"Whoever did this has been pretty determined. They have pulled off the rabbit netting to get to them."
Not that the bras would be of much use, as the thieves had left behind at least one of the shoulder straps.
Wanaka police have been notified of the disappearance.

Shoe Trees

Shoe Trees may be the greatest embodiment of the American Spirit you can find on the highway (free of admission charge, anyway). While cultural anthropologists trumpet the aggregated populist statement of the gum tree or the gob rock, we believe Shoe Trees soar to greater heights.
A shoe tree starts with one dreamer, tossing his or her footwear-of-old high into the sky, to catch on an out-of-reach branch. It usually end there, unseen and neglected by others. But on rare occasions, that first pair of shoes triggers a shoe tossing cascade. Soon, teens are gathering up their old Adidas and Sauconys, families are driving out after church with Dad's Reeboks and grandma's Keds. Many inscribe messages on the sneakers in permanent marker -- greetings, love poems and life accomplishments.
The shoe tree blooms with polymer beauty. A work of art like this may last for generations, tracing our history by our sneakers . . . as long as the tree doesn't die.
On Highway 50 near Middlegate, Nevada, a lone cottonwood stands, clotted with hundreds of shoes. One tipster tells us the first pair was thrown during a wedding night argument by a young couple; later, their children's shoes were added to the bough. Whatever its origins, the tree now seems to suck up all the discarded footwear in the county.
The original Mud Flat Shoe Tree south of Altura, California was cut down in 1993, but second generation Shoe Trees sprouted along Highway 395. One of them, the Ravendale Shoe Tree (photo left), features scores of sneaker pairs dangling from branches, a strange ritual by bored locals. Not a fully developed shoe tree, but far from anywhere.
The Shoe Tree in Salem, Michigan even has a legend involving a serial killer and a quantity of small children dispatched for their footwear.
A shrunken old desert tree near Vidal, California , on Hwy 62 northest of the junction with Route 177, bore both shoes and a variety of shirts -- until some maniac burned it down in 2004.

Case Study: The Great Beaver Shoe Tree

The Shoe Tree in Beaver, Arkansas was on the road to Beaver Dam, a few miles from Dinosaur World. It was mysteriously chosen, one of many thousands of trees and woods lining an otherwise featureless highway. Hundreds of old sneakers and running shoes dangled, some over 30 feet off the ground. Why this particular tree instead of its scores of flanking arboreal brethren?
There was a dirt shoulder where tourists and contributors could pull off. Many of the shoes had names and messages scrawled on them in magic marker. Closer inspection revealed that shoes had started to spread to branches on adjacent trees, like sneaker kudzu. Eventually, this whole stretch of road might have been choked with shoe trees.
In 2000, disaster struck. A wind storm felled the Great Beaver Shoe Tree -- perhaps aided by the unnatural burden of hundreds of waterlogged hangers-on. The road department hauled off the branches and fallen footwear, and the mighty loss could be felt across all of Shoetreedom...
But something magical happened. In subsequent months, locals and visitors continued to bring their cast-offs, heaving into the trees surrounding the gap. A few trees contended as replacements for the Great Shoe Tree.
Then some people, recently arrived and living in fancy log cabins nearby, decided they didn't like the attention to their stretch of road. Persons unknown butchered the offending limbs from the trees, wood and rubber and laces tumbling in a shower of horror.
At last report, the shoe trees of Beaver had been severely diminished.
But others flourish in gentler communities. More have been sighted in Nordman, Idaho; Milltown, Indiana; Hodgdon, Maine; Atlanta and Owosso, Michigan; Lyndonville, New York; and elsewhere.

Tell us about your Shoe Tree sightings (It should have at least 50 pairs of shoes, be publicly accessible, and known as a "Shoe Tree" by the locals -- try asking for directions to a shoe tree and see what you get. Send a tip)