Pedotle thrills the crowd at Toowoon Bay

Visitors to Toowoon Bay

Surf Club excitedly welcomed the first ever appearance of the Pedotle – an interactive sculpture designed with children in wheelchairs for everyone to enjoy.

Pronounced per dottle, its part pelican, part dolphin and part turtle. It flies, blinks and even farts bubbles.

Toowoon Bay’s Stingray

Nippers Group Co-ordinator

Karen Hickmott said the Pedotle celebrates the abilities of wheelchair participants rather than focusing on their disabilities.

Dreamed up by the Stingrays, the Pedotle became a reality with the help of artists Andi Mether and Leonardo Uribe from Zest Events, sculptor Tom Ireland and costume maker

Tegan Kinder.

The project was commissioned by Creative Arts Central.

Toowoon Bay Surf Club member and Federal Member for Dobell, Emma McBride, was there to welcome the exotic creature.

“Andi was talking to me about this on patrol about 12 months ago,” she said.

“The idea of a pelican, turtle and a dolphin, pitched by

Bailey, and then to see what Andi, Zest and Leo have been able to achieve is absolutely incredible.”

Stingrays Nipper participants Bailey and Krystal were the main inspiration for the design