Thursday 15 April 2010

Bye Bye JJ & Bye Bye JJ!


Got up ridiculously early, put together the last of my things and said a sad farewell to JJ and then left her to go back to bed whilst I headed to the Stray bus pick up point outside the YHA, arriving there at 7.20am. I had been told to get there for 7.30am, with an approximate pick up time of 7.55am. After a while I was joined by a couple of other people, including Anna! She and the other girl were waiting for a different Stray bus. We chatted as we waited, then lady at reception called Stray for us to see where our buses were. Apparently they were on their way. Still nothing. Anna decided to call again at 9.10 and she was told her bus had just left the pick up before hers, she then asked about mine and they asked to speak to me.

I was stunned to hear the woman say that the bus had been and had left because I hadn’t arrived on time! I couldn’t believe it! Anyway, after a lot of faffing about and a lot of being put on hold, it turned out that I had been told to go to one pick up place, but the man had clicked on the wrong one on their system, so they had gone somewhere else to pick me up, whilst I was waiting at the YHA. I was far from impressed with this revelation and from somewhere within me, a different person arose and I found myself saying that leaving tomorrow instead was not good enough. I surprised myself. I was even more surprised when the woman on the phone said that Stray would pay for me to travel from Auckland to Paihia today on a regular Inter-City bus. Wow! She then set about booking my seat on the 1pm bus. Result.

So, I now had time to kill. What to do? There really was only one solution. Back to the hostel for free wifi! I decided to sit in the cafe next door to the hostel, having ascertained yesterday that the hostel wifi signal stretched that far. I grabbed a coffee, text JJ to tell her I was delayed and got online. A while later, JJ appeared and we had a drink together and sat, chatting, until it was time for me to go to the bus station. JJ accompanied me there and waited with me until I boarded. Saying goodbye this time was indeed much harder, I don’t really know why, but it was! I guess there was no doubt this time that it was the last time I’ll see her until August . As the bus pulled out of the terminal, we both waved frantically at one another and I think people must’ve thought us a bit odd!

The bus journey itself was totally non-eventful! In fact, even more dull that being on a long Stray bus – this time there was no music, no speaking and the bus was actually full of actual 12 year olds (and younger!) – being the end of the school Easter hols, it appears NZ parents ship their kids off to visit their grandparents, then the kids get shipped (or, I guess, bussed) home again. It meant lots of 6-13 year olds all travelling alone. The bus driver did not speak at al, other than giving us a big speech at the start of the journey, telling us that eating and drinking on the bus was outlawed – seriously, he went on about it with such ferocity, I was slightly worried he might get a sniffer dog out or something!

After a few hours of passing through hills, with views of cows and sheep, we stopped for a comfort break (we were reminded that this was our one and only chance to eat or drink along the journey!). The driver took us to a very odd cafe which was cow themed. It was excessively cow themed. Cow related pictures, nik-naks, tat, signage, jokes, furniture, cutlery, crockery, wall decorations, statues, plates... They seriously liked cows.

Back on the bus, I whiled away some time listening to my ipod and reading my book. I remembered that I needed to finish off the reading/written tests for my diving tomorrow, so got that done. Then I had a phone call – from my friend Larissa in Australia! It was a lovely surprise! We had a quick chat, she was wondering when I would be going to Berry, so we could make some plan, I told her I was in NZ, so we agreed that we’d sort something out when I get to NSW.

Eventually the bus arrived at Paihia. I got off and waited, then a few minute later, the Stray bus arrived, to pick me up and transfer me to my hostel, which actually turned out to be two minutes up the road. I checked in and went to my room. I was stunned to see it had a tv and it’s own bathroom – not had one of those for a long while! It was a four bed dorm, but there was only one other person in there, a nice guy from Ireland. We chatted for a bit, then he went out and I decided to have a chilled night in, so got settled on my bed, watching tv. Bliss! I watched Friends, Neighbours, the news (OMG about the volcano grounding flights in Europe and an earthquake in China!), then I nearly fell off the bed when Coronation Street came on – the Christmas show! I felt quite at home watching that! After that were two American thriller/crime shows which were quite good. The Irish guy came back and we chatted, watching the news for a bit before deciding that it was time for sleep – diving tomorrow!

No comments:

Post a Comment