The Magic Bus

   The Camper van is a favourite way for overseas tourists to N.Z. to get around. As the weather cools, they are starting to thin out a bit, but all year a steady stream of visitors chug around the country side, The Kiwi's, especially the older ones, tend to buy a Japanese used import bus, convert it to a camper, paint something like "Idling Along" on the front and also hit the road. There are bloody hordes of them. I'm glad I got in early. In 1971 I brought my first bus for $139 NZ. It was a 1939 Leyland. It had retired exhausted from hauling Wellingtonians around the Capital's steep, San Francisco like hills. It was temperamental. It exploded once and put me into hospital with burns for three months. It was also a sensation. The Traffic Police would stop me, but only out of curiosity. Officialdom couldn't cope and it was defined as "any other vehicle" so I paid little tax, and was it treated like a car at Warrant Of Fitness Inspection time. I could park on bus stops. Diesel was practically given away. It was great. It eventually expired in a tiny railway settlement in the Hawkes Bay, never to go again. Not a worry, though, I got a job in the Railway's for a couple of years and brought a better one, a 1948 Leyland Tiger. The tiger I had for 13 years. It was reliable, funky, and we had a multitude of adventures together. I could not imagine not having a bus. You could go somewhere and party all the way. You could pick up zillions of hitchhikers. 19 of us travelled round the South Island once. But the time came when I was building a house (and that is another story) and had to find some money for road metal for the drive, and a wood stove. So I sold it. I was always going to get another one. Now, though, I see all the oldies out there, lace curtains and soft toys, and "Dunrovin", and I'm glad I got my retirement in first.