When Nicole Colman started her car at High Riding estate in Sir Lowry's Pass Village she began hearing strange noises. "I looked underneath the car, but couldn't see anything," she told the Cape Argus.

"It sounded like someone was having trouble breathing. So I took the kids to school and then went to my local garage."

Nico Buckle, of Shell Auto Serve in the Strand, said: "The lady arrived complaining of sounds of heavy breathing and hissing from her car. "I pulled it up on to my lift and I saw the car had grown a lot of hair! I've seen dead snakes before and dead birds caught in the grille, but there sat this dassie!"

"It must have climbed up there to sleep, but when the car started it tried to climb higher. It got stuck between the shock absorber and the petrol tank. We first checked whether it was alive. There was definitely movement - to see it was still alive was an even bigger shock."

The adventurous dassie had somehow survived the school run safely. "She drove more than 10km with this animal under her car," said a disbelieving Buckle.

As he was about to try to extricate the little offender, he was put off by its bared teeth. Unsure what to do, Buckle called a Helderberg animal specialist, Wayne Furno. He was there within minutes. He wriggled up into the chassis and expertly nabbed the ferocious little critter.

Furno popped the dassie into the back of his bakkie, drove it up the mountainside beneath Sir Lowry's Pass, near where it must have lived before its extraordinary jaunt, and released it back into the fynbos. "I'm so glad it turned out fine," said the relieved Nicole Colman.

(Source: The Cape Argus, 24 Nov 2005)