Woke up very early, got dressed and went with Rebecca down to the bus pick-up point, where we met up with the others who were leaving on the first bus at 6.45am to go on the deep south tour and those of us who had come to wave them off. We chatted and said our farewells, then Daisy arrived with the bus and it really was time for them to go, so they all hopped onto the bus. Two of the girls were missing so Bobbie and I went back to the hostel to see if we could find them; they were still in bed so we reported back and the bus left without them! It was really sad watching Rebecca, Sarah and the others head off with Daisy in the bus – the end of another Stray bus adventure.
I didn’t have too much time to think about it as I had to get back to my room, finish off my packing, say goodbye to TJ and Bobbie, check out and get down to meet my bus at 7.30am. I was the only person from my last bus who would be travelling up to Christchurch on today’s bus – some of the others would be going on the bus tomorrow, but I had decided to go today so that I would be able to spend more time with Jet. When the bus arrived, I introduced myself to the driver, Trouble – also known as Brent. I was the first person on the bus, so we sat and chatted whilst we waited. I told him about my new fascination with driving the bus and how people on the last bus had thought I worked for Stray; Trouble gave me the clipboard with the manifest so I could tick people off the list as they got on!
I sat up the front with Trouble and we started on our way and went to a couple of other hostels where we picked up some more people and I ticked them off. One of them was Charlotte – one of the girls from the north island tour, it was really nice seeing her again and we had a catch up. We chatted for ages as we carried on the drive. The actual drive itself was not very interesting, apparently it’s the least favourite drive on the circuit as it is really long and relatively dull. It made me realise that being a Stray driver must get really boring as it involves a lot of driving through scenery which is beautiful but I guess there is only so many times you can see it before you zone it out. Charlotte disembarked the bus and we picked up another person, then carried on our way.
After a while, we stopped off at a town by a lake for a break. I got to fill in the mileage chart! Some people went for a walk to see a church by the lake, whilst the rest of us went for a coffee and then drove down to pick up the others from the church. The church itself had a beautiful setting, with the backdrop of the lake, but unfortunately there was a funeral about to start so we couldn’t go in and look around. We hopped back on the bus and I did a head count with the clip board.
Over the next part of the journey, I carried on chatting to Trouble and passing the time. The scenery changed as we went but it didn’t really register on my radar – I believe I am now officially impervious to NZ’s beauty. It is a shame I know, but I think it is because I definitely was in need of seeing tall buildings and being in a town with more than one horse’s leg. We stopped for another break at a town famous for salmon farming – so they have put up a big salmon by the side of the road, how Kiwi. After lunch, I persuaded Trouble to go ahead with the keys and let me start the bus – the need to hear the ‘tschhhh’ was so strong! I checked people back onto the bus with the manifest and then hopped back into the passenger seat.
On the rest of the journey, I helped sort out the drop off points in Christchurch and a few people came and asked me some questions about stuff which indicated that they thought I worked for Stray, so I got back into character and went with it! Thankfully they were asking questions about things I actually knew the answers to, so I could give them genuine information! We arrived in Christchurch at 5pm and I helped navigate around the city to some of the more obscure drop off points, then said goodbye to Trouble, hopped off the bus at The Bog (the pub where Jet works), picked up the key and went to his house.
The journey had indeed been long and even though I hadn’t done anything other than talk and pretend to drive the bus, getting back to Jet’s place was really good and so I just flopped onto the sofa and chilled out for a couple of hours with a few cups of tea, then took a shower and got ready to go out.
When Jet finished work we met up in town and spent the evening having a few drinks and catching up one another’s news. Jet was interested to hear about my travels around NZ and whether my opinion about the country had changed over the last few weeks. We moved between different bars and met up with a few other people and had a generally entertaining and jovial evening. One of the bars had a very retro video game machine which caused some amusement. Time flew by and we eventually made our way back to Jet’s in the wee hours, stopping along the way for some very peculiar form of food which I dare not think about too much as it was so wrong – a strange chicken, ham and cheese combination in breadcrumbs, but at that time in the morning it seemed like the best thing to do! Back at Jet’s we had some tea and watched a movie on his laptop before flaking out.
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