Incommunicado - The East Cape Experience (Part 3: 8 hour drive to Napier)

After a nice refreshing sleep of about 3 hours, I jumped out of bed to begin the hike up the hill. Leading the way with my hot-pink mini maglite, most of the party was able to avoid stepping in the free-range cow, sheep, pig, horse etc manure. We made it up the hill in record time and spent the next 1.5hours freezing and huddling. Unfortunately it was really cloudy, so after 1.5 hours freezing at the top of the hill and watching a band of cloud turn pink, we (the more intelligent specimens in the group) made the informed decision to wait no longer and go have a shower back at the dorms. Not 5 minutes after we left, the sun burst through and apparently the people who toughed it out got absolutely wonderful pictures. Fine. Great. Wonderful! So, here's the best of mine, you'll just have to admire the cloud!


OK, I'm not a fan of long plane journeys, train journeys, car journeys etc. I pretty much like instant gratification. However, after an 8 hour bus journey along windy roads in the middle of nowhere, I say "that was surprisingly fun!".
Here's why.

We left Rangitukia and headed out onto the highway to encounter several large groups of sheep wandering along the HIGHWAY. They were all running ahead of the bus, slowly, and there was no way around them. Suddenly, up ahead, another car approached from the opposite side and the sheep turned around EN MASSE and started charging our way. It was great! I managed to get one picture and cool little film of the Wave of Wool.

We then stopped at the Longest Pier which runs 660m out into the ocean. At the end of it, our busdriver took off his pants to show his grey underwear and leapt off the end of the pier. 5 minutes later, he climbed up a pilon with a load of fresh mussels he had plucked right off the pier! (he's the guy on the left -->)

The rest of the trip went by surprisingly quickly as we used iPods ot DJ on the bus soundsystem, made stops here and there and generally had fun with everyone on the bus. I might just suggest that to BA on the way home: "How about I go to the cockpit and play some tunes from my iPod so everyone can sing/scream/hum along, then we can play 'I spy something beginning with...' and if you could just land in Moscow for a tiny potty-break to stretch our legs, that would be grand". Nope, I don't see it happening either. Long Live the East As bus!