And the strategy for throwing the second-grade fruit at competing teams: "You’ve got to aim for their softest point", Roxburgh girl Neleah Manderson (13) said at Roxburgh’s Cherry Chaos on Saturday night.
"So that’s their head, stomach and butts. You aim for the person, pick the cherries up, throw them as hard as you can."
Neleah favoured a barrage strategy where you "pick up as many as you can hold".
"If you get hit in the head it hurts really bad, but it slows them down."
At the end of the course teams crawled through a trough of mashed cherries, which were even sloppier due to the rain.
"It’s really gross.
"There’s so much water you feel like you’re drowning."
Central Otago Mayor Tim Cadogan won the cherry-stone spitting competition at the event with a length of 14.25m and said he would give his $100 prize to local boy Caleb Darling, who is suffering from leukaemia.
The winning length at the Cromwell cherry-stone spitting competition earlier this month was 11.3m. However, as opposed to at that event, Cherry Chaos’ lengths were measured at the point where the stone ended up rather than the point where it first landed. It was uncertain whether his effort would comply with the international handbook.
Co-organiser Brigitte Paterson said the 28 entered teams was down on last year’s 37, probably because of the weather, but temperatures were mild enough to attract spectators.
"It was a great event and the competitors, as usual, got really into it."
The clean-up was "disgusting" and needed to be done that night as storms were forecast to hit the town.
Coal Creek orchardist Stephen Jeffery said there were enough second-grade cherries for the night’s activities.
Poor weather late last week would have created more, but by then the bins for the event had already been filled, he said.
Cherry Chaos is organised by local promotions group Teviot Prospects.
