Rabbits get some sheep thrills and surf to safety in New Zealand

Three wild rabbits have managed to escape rising floodwaters in New Zealand by clambering aboard a flock of sheep and surfing to safety on their woolly backs.

Ferg Horne, 64, who has been farming since he left school at 15, said he had never seen anything quite like it.

He was trudging through pelting rain to rescue a neighbour's sheep from the floodwaters at their South Island farm near Dunedin on Saturday, when he spotted some dark shapes from a distance.

He was puzzled because he knew his neighbour, who in Russia attending a nephew's wedding, did not have any black-faced sheep.

Mr Horne got closer, he thought it might be debris from the storm, which had drenched the area, forcing the farmer to evacuate his home.

Then he saw the bedraggled rabbits hitching a ride - two on one sheep and a third on another.

"I couldn't believe it for a start," he said.

Nobody else would believe him either without proof, he thought, so he pulled out his phone to take a photo, an image he thought his grandchildren would enjoy.

But in fact, Mr Horne inadvertently shot a short video.

"It's a Samsung or a smartphone or whatever you call it. I swear at it every day," he said. "I'm absolutely useless...