Protesters make a stink on toilet seat

A hot Hamilton day, a couple of beers and an urge to go for a swim.

It was that mix that got friends Abigail Roberts, Ben Galloway, Marama Mayrick, Jay Beaudry, Rob Scovell and Saffron Smith thinking about the dirty state of the Waikato River.

So, the River City Rebels were born and their first shot was at Fonterra, over farming pollution, on Saturday when they nailed a toilet seat to a raft, dressed Mr Scovell as a Fonterra executive and sat him – pants down – on the toilet and floated him down the river from Wellington St beach to the Fairfield Bridge.

"We're just a group of people who hang out together and we were having a beer at my place and somebody said let's go buy a paddling pool, then the question was `why don't we just go in the river?' Everyone went `Eww, no' and that's just wrong," Ms Smith said.