A Waikato couple is pleased to announce the arrival of a potato as big as a very large baby.
Their 7.9kg super-spud weighs the same as a Christmas ham or an average-sized dog, and it's already made them world-famous in Ngāhinapōuri.
He's their baby, Doug. Doug by name, and dug straight out of nature.
"I got the fork in and jabbed it out of the ground and 'holy snapping turtle teeth what's going on here?' And I thought 'what is it'?" says Colin Craig-Brown.
The tyrannosaurus tatie needed a taste test to determine exactly what it was.
"I said to Donna, 'it's a potato' and she went 'no', I said 'yeah it is'!"
He's been brewing underground in their self-confessed feral garden for "a good couple of years", Donna Craig-Brown reckons.
The couple weighed Doug initially at 7.9kg. A week later, a trip down to PGG Wrightsons confirmed he was a colossus.
Doug's experienced a bit of shrinkage in the last eight weeks since his official measure. He's lost almost a kg with evaporation and is starting to smell like sardines.
"So I decided to employ my basic cryogenic techniques and throw him in the freezer!" says Craig.
It will help with preserving the evidence for the Guinness World Records team who's still to confirm Doug as the world's biggest. The current record holder is a mere 4.9kg spud from the UK.
"If we have it confirmed, there will be a celebration," says Donna.
"Actually, I've been thinking, since I'm a hobbyist homebrewer, I'm thinking about a special vodka," Craig says.
But suggest cooking Doug up for a monster mash, potato salad, or roast tatties for a small army and you may as well wash your mouth out, Colin is smitten.
"Poor fella, he doesn't have arms and legs and that sort of thing, so I made him a little trolley! So we can take him out and give him a bit of sun."
Doug and his Waikato wonderbed could yet shine as a tourist attraction.
"We'll fence it off and I reckon I could charge at least five bucks admission. I gotta think of tomorrow, gotta think of the grandchildren - give them some sort of endowment!" Craig says.
Because you can't just leave them a potato.
