Watch as 10-year-old girl captures peculiar sight on Chesterfield road

"It’s a giraffe – what’s happening,” says 10-year-old Isla Byrne in a video shot while she was travelling in a car along Calow Green on Monday.

The cute clip was submitted by her aunt Lindsey Ann, who posted: “Any explanations welcome!"

Zarafa the giraffe was on her way to Bolsover after entertaining families at the first Chesterfield Children’s Festival in Queen’s Park.

Created by puppeteer Seb Mayer and his girlfriend Daisy Beattie, the well-travelled giraffe is 11ft tall, structured around walking poles with a carbon fibre frame and a cardboard skin which is decorated by the people who meet her. Seb said: "She weighs nine kilograms but I also carry my tent and sleeping bag so in total I'm carrying15 kg.”

During Zarafa’s visit to Chesterfield she was painted pink at the request of two little girls while other children left handprints with their names in the middle of them. Seb said: “The following day I went into Chesterfield town centre and got people to colour the hands in.

"After the kids’ festival I got people to vote whether I should walk the puppet to Rotherham or Mansfield it came in 90-60 to Mansfield so I camped near Bolsover last night. I've met delightful people in Bolsover where I invited kids to draw something on the giraffe. I had a little kid draw a Godzilla and some teenagers who decided to draw penises on it!”

Seb is sponsored to take Zarafa to places outside of London that haven’t had their fair share of Arts Council funding. He plans to visit Rotherham later in the week and a puppet festival in Skipton at the weekend.

He said: "The giraffe project is a really lovely way to meet people – it puts a smile on my face that they are up for a chat. It lets me be out in nature and find out more about the local area.

“In England you have got this network of public walking paths that go over stiles and through kissing gates which is great for a walker but for a giraffe it makes it a lot more difficult. I've had to squeeze through bars that are meant to keep cattle out and climb over stiles with difficulty but I'm having a great time because it's beautiful countryside around here.

"The project is borne out of my love of hiking. I’ve been a puppet maker for ten years but when all the work got cancelled during lockdown I walked without a puppet from Sussex to Inverness and that was when I first went to Staffordshire and Derbyshire and found them to be really friendly lovely places.”

During springtime he walked Zarafa on a 1,000km route from Marseille to Paris, covering a route made by the first giraffe in France 200 years ago when it was given to the French monarch King Charles X by Muhammad Ali of Egypt. Seb, 31, who lives in north London, said: “It was a massive experience meeting people every day and improving my French. I started in April and finished in June and was only rained on three times out of 50 days of walking. Crops were dying everywhere and it was really hot.

"It's been interesting being in Derbyshire in the summer. I've not walked in the wet before and it's really interesting to see the paint wearing off Zarafa’s feet and she's starting to mulch up - it's not as pleasant, but it's really lovely to see rain and the grass looking really healthy.”