Early start back on the bus on the morning of 27 Feb to leave Hahei. The night before had been pretty good, but fairly quiet. I was still on antibiotics for a persistant bad throat so didn't glug any booze. I was in a bunk underneath a posh kid called Will who claimed the dorms reminded him of Army cadet barracks at Sandringham or something. Nice guy, but he moved about a lot so I was forced to stuff my iPod headphones in and listen to Motown compilations all night, which to be fair is no bad thing. Bucketloads of Temps and big dollops of Smokey.
The bus was heading to our next overnight stop of Raglan, but on the way we passed through a town called Hamilton where we were told we could visit a statue of a a transvestite. This was sort of true, as it was actually a statue of Richard O'Brien in full Rock Horror garb, erected as a tribute to the chrome-domed former Chrystal Maze host because he used to work in a barbers in the town throughout the early 60s. I imagine it must be very frustrating being a hairdresser when you're bald as a coot, don't you think? Anyway It was in this town that O'Brien had come up with the idea for the Rocky Horror Show. All very well and good, but why did someone have to stick a condom on his finger?
Another notable highlight of Hamilton was a public toilet that talks to you and plays muzak versions of Bacharach tunes whilst you're taking a plop. Which was nice. Ooh, and by the way, according to Seagull, 1 in 4 people that live in Hamilton have got Chlamydia. So maybe Richard O'Brien had the right idea.
We were now into the second day of the trip, and gradually a few more characters on the bus were revealing themselves. There was Jacob the German (mentioned briefly in the last blog) who asked me three times what Stray pass I had booked and then - bizarrely - kept going on about how funny it was that some children were given weird names like 'Wesley', even though no-one brought the topic up or even engaged him in this conversation. Strange bloke. Then there was fellow Germans Kevin and Andreas, English girls Rachael and Emma, and a guy called Jan who looked like a Dutch version of a bloke called Martin that I used to work with years ago. (I don't expect that fact to mean much to any of you readers, but I mention it simply because Jan was one of the many people I met throughout my world tour that were spitting images of former work colleagues. In the Red Centre of Australia I met the Turkish version of Keith Wozencroft and in Auckland I met the gay Aussie version of Andy Day! Honestly it was uncanny!!! Ok, I sense I'm playing to a small audience here. I'll move on...).
Our accomodation in Raglan was based up in the forest near Whale Bay. The only real source of entertainment was a 'flying fox' zipline on which we all had a bash on and enjoyed thoroughly. Well, all of us except for one girl (Rachel) who was so scared of having a swing that her friends kindly picked her up and forced her on it, leading to her let go too early, fall off and smash her only pair of prescription glasses into bits. She had to wear her prescription sunglasses for the rest of the trip. Poor thing. You mustn't laugh, but...
A few of us also went off for a lark down by the rocks at the beach, where we inhaled the sea air and took outrageously vain photos of each other posing and looking moody like so...
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28 Feb 2009
Took the bus from Raglan to Maketu, stopping briefly at lunchtime to take in the glowworm caves of a very rainy Waitomo. The caves were not as exciting as we hoped. However, afterwards we got to watch a huge fat white rabbit being tied down and sheared of it's white fluff, which was far less cruel and far more comical than one might expect.
At Maketu we stayed at the home of a Maori gent named Uncle Boy, who along with his family and staff cooked us dinner and taught us all traditional Maori dances. We were told Uncle Boy was 70+ years old and "happily married" with a bunch of grown-up offspring. However, when asked by one of us why his wife wasn't joining us at dinner he said that she'd gone off travelling 4 and a half years ago and hadn't come back yet! Classic.
Anyway, the girls got taught some sort of lame Poi dance and all the boys got taught the far more appealing Hakka. This is the traditional Kiwi war dance thingy, which i'm sure appears very scary and intimidating when performed by ancient Maori warriors and the All Blacks rugby team, but looks faintly ridiculous when performed by the likes of scrawny Englishman and pasty overweight Dutch. We also got taught the traditional Hongi greeting which involved bowing and touching noses with our Maori hosts. Sounds fairly innocuous, but it felt a little awkward when it came to the old granny of the house. For a minute I thought I was going to panic, lean in too far and end up headbutting her or kissing her face. I kept it together though.
All in all a top night. Everyone drunk loads of cheap wine, the guitars came out, and we all crashed out around 2am sleeping in one big barn of a room. Check it out...
Only bad thing about today was when we went round the room asking everyone's age and I realised I was the oldest bloke on the bus.
Shit.
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Listening:
Supergrass 'Tales of Endurance (Parts 4, 5 & 6)' (Near-forgotten latter-day 'Grass masterpiece from Road to Rouen. More of these please chaps)
Smokey Robinson 'Tracks of my Tears'
Marvin/Tammi 'You're All I Need'
The Cardinals 'Freeway to the Canyon'
Coldplay 'Life in Technicolour Part II'
Sugar 'If I Can't Change Your Mind'
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