Bus to the Islands

I was pleased to have managed to stay up so long on the first day. It meant I'd made a good opening attack on the jet lag onslaught. The early night that the switch demanded also made it easy for the next few days, which were to involve early starts. Especially the first one.

This trip was initially conceived as a pure adventure. No plans, no pre-booking, just get there and follow the nose. It became apparent fairly soon that this was not really viable. First of all, I had three people to visit, at the top, middle and bottom of the country. If I was to keep appointments with all three, some degree of planning would be required. Secondly, I know me; and without any initial plan I'd spend the next three days doing pretty well what I did yesterday, and to be honest, it's an awful long way to come and a lot of money to spend to sit on a harbour and watch the world (albeit a slightly different and very pretty one) pass by my eyes. So I booked a three-day trip to 'The Bay of Islands' without really knowing what it was when I booked the flight, with the express purpose of getting me off my arse and seeing stuff.

I woke up at 5am without the aid of an alarm, which went off annoyingly 15 minutes later when I was in the shower. Normally that would be a sure fire symptom of jet lag, but in this case it meant I'd had seven hours full, uninterrupted sleep. Also, my bus to take me on the first leg of my adventure was arriving to pick me up at 6:30.

I was first on the bus. Not necessarily due to my keenness, but mainly due to the fact that my hotel was the first of many stops the driver made to pick up passengers. The passengers were varied, but most were older or middle aged people travelling together. In fact, there was just one other 'independent' traveller on the coach.

There are basically two types of people that make up the vast majority of visitors to New Zealand. The first group are older people, probably the kids have left and they all of a sudden have the time and money to go on long haul holidays. They want to see stuff, but generally they want to be shown it rather than have to go looking. Some are in couples, some are alone, but most choose 'packaged' trips like this tour, filling whole weeks and months with building block tours of the country. All will happily reel off their entire itinerary to you at the drop of a hat, with a carefully calculated time slot for each attraction, and a comfortable if dull hotel for each evening. Old people are the best - they're getting adventurous and seeing the world. Why should the grandkids have all the fun anyway?

The second group are the young people - the backpackers, the gap-year-students. And they're EVERYWHERE. They're huddled round bus stops at ungodly hours of the morning, belongings stuffed into beaten green satchels on their backs; they're at every tourist stop, but not normally going in; and finally they're in every bar in town, nursing a pint of lager before hitting the nightspots, drinking whatever they can buy cheap before going home with someone they'd never met before. 'Home' for this demographic is a 'backpacker', a complex of dorms and shared rooms, with beds from as little as £8 a night. I didn't venture one (partly because I felt old just looking at them and partly because I like a little comfort when I travel) but I'm told they're actually pretty respectable, provided you don't mind sharing.

I unfortunately fall very much between these two demographics. The senior tourists were pleasant (and in some cases loads of fun) but I couldn't stand their prescribed approach to things. The kids, well, they were kids and I'm not really anymore. I envied them to a certain extent - why couldn't I party like that anymore, but then I never really wanted to party like that when I was 18 and not that much has changed. Every so often you see one of their travelling communes on the road - the company 'Kiwi Experience' has a fleet of what are generally known as 'Big Green Shag Buses' which carry a couple of dozen backpackers around the country from bungee jump to jet boat to beach bar and finally to bed for a month. They generally leave with little or no memory of the country and a strange itch.

Our bus however, with its mixed cargo of middle aged couples, a few older adventurers and me was headed North - first stop Waitangi.

Fresh Petrol

The Kiwi sense of humour is never far from the surface. It's dry and self deprecating, but rarely sarcastic. The one thing you can always rely on a kiwi to be is honest and frank - occasionally to a fault. The area we were travelling through was littered with orchards and farms; all advertising their wares on signs at the sign of the road. Some offered 'Delicious Fruit!', others teased with 'Juicy Tomatoes!'. One, a few hundred yards before a gas station, even boasted 'Fresh Petrol.'

Conspicuous by their absence on Kiwi bus tours are tour guides. You won't find some miserable orange man in a bad suit mumbling into a microphone, or even an excessively cheerful airheaded blonde in a short skirt pointing out the sights along the way. All the personality here comes from your friendly neighbourhood driver. In this case, Dave was always on hand with interesting information about the surrounding areas, facts and figures about things we were seeing along the way, but most importantly, the sort of anecdotes and stories you just don't get from Lonely Planet.

Dave relayed a story about a local farmer - hard working chap, never really done anyone any harm, but not exactly what you could call a 'people person'. Now, during hay bailing season it is normal for farmers to have their bundles of golden goodness lying out in the fields covered by large tarpaulins. Obviously someone thought it would be really funny this particular season to sneak up during the night, uncover the hay bails and make off with the cover. This resulted in our farmer loosing most of his hay crop to the wind, which kindly distributed it across the road and all over the neighbouring fields.

Just as Dave finished his story, came the punch line, right on cue. A small, hand-painted sign at the side of the road which read, simply and to the point : 'Will the bastard who stole the blue tarp please return it. It was not mine.'

Too Orangey For Crows

When a large, dark-skinned man with extensive facial tattooing jumps on your bus, waves his (not unsubstantial) arms in the air and shouts 'kia-ora!!' you'd be forgiven for being a little shocked. He paused, put his (not unsubstantial) hand to his ear and frowned. He tried again. Now as you come to mention it, I am a little thirsty.

'Kia-Ora!!' he bellowed, then looked down the coach expectantly. I think he wants a response. He'd probably do better in English.

'Welcome!' he said. That's better. 'When a Maori greets you, he says kia-ora. You reply kia-ora back. Let's try again.'

'Kia-ORA!!' he shouted. He'd obviously been holding back before.

'Kia Ora!' we replied in unison, those of us with a memory for 1980s orange juice adverts stifling our giggles. New Zealand, I thought. It's too orangey for crows. It's just for me and my dawg. This pleased our new host, who went on to speak more Maori, but had the good grace to translate for us. He welcomed us to Waitangi, the spiritual home of his people, and thanked the navigator of our canoe (the Maori language hasn't really evolved much - to this day, any form of transport, from a bicycle to Concorde, is a canoe. I kind of like that) for bringing us there safely.

It is appropriate though that we are greeted in this manner, for we have arrived at Waitangi - birthplace of modern New Zealand.

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