A Flooded Bridge, A Rope & A School Bus

If you've read the story about Surfing Cyclone Bola then you will already be familiar with the potential catastrophe a flood can cause up in the so called Winterless North. Granted that story was about a Cyclone but every year when the torrential rain would bucket down into the rivers our river would burst and cause heaps of shit and chaos.

This story will crack some of you guys up...and yes it is a true story ok?

The day started with rain, rain and more rain. Woke up breathing first (good start to the day I reckon) then after the morning thing, jumped on the school bus to go to school. Our bus had to cross a rickety bridge, not that we thought that at the time as it was just a bridge.....sweet! Now the local farmers used to keep an eye on the water levels as the river would rise so high that it would spill over the bridges and make it nearly impossible to get to and from home. They would call the school and there would be an announcement "Otaua bus pupils, please go to the hall". So we were obviously peeved that we had to finish the school day early to go home..... NOT! Classmates were so envious as they would say stuff like "oh man, can we come to your place bro?" etc etc. Some of the gifted ones would be like "course you ca...........'nt". Hooning out of the classroom 'woohooing' and all that jazz, yeh rubbing salt into wounds so to speak hehe.

We got on the bus and headed home. Kids of all ages crammed into the bus like sardines, man I dunno how those bus drivers coped with us lot half the time, some spitting out the windows, some giving cars and pedestrians the finger, some trying to smoke out the window, yelling abuse at passers by through town.....mate, couldn't do that now or is it that I'm just out of touch living in suburbia now?

The bus diverted off the tar seal road and onto our gravel road, all the while driving alongside the river and us kids peering out the window observing the rising river lapping up onto the main road with "oohs' and "aaahs" and "ho! look at the river bro!". We got to the bridge and man what a sight! The water was spewing over the bridge...we were too late! How are we gonna get home? I don't wanna go back to friggen school man! I wanna get home and have a feed and listen to music! I wanna get out on our skimmer boards in the paddock! I wanna, I wanna, I wanna!

Well... the bus driver at the time must have had his own "I wanna", he obviously wanted to get us home, or was it that he just wanted us unruly lot off his bloody bus. Maybe we drove him to madness? Maybe. Because this is what happened......

In all his great fantastical wisdom he decided that the best thing to do would be to get a 'volunteer' to become the next stunt man of the century...crash course but you'll be a hero young man. This stunt man/boy tied a big fat rope around his waste which was tied to the bus...and yes, with encouragement from everyone on the bus he slowly ventured out, first step, second step, third step... water moving quickly past his shins to the right, fourth step... water up to his knees. The onlookers silent, not breathing... man people would pay to see this shit! Wicked! I remember thinking "Geez mate! You can stop now", and the bus driver must have read my mind because he yelled out for him to come back now. I think he mustve had a reality check because it was one of the most insane sights I have ever seen. He may as well have taken him out fishing and used him for shark bate....yep, i'd put it in that category!

So the hero turned around and skiddied a bit losing his footing for just a moment, I couldn't even give you a visual of what his face looked like at that particular moment as it was a mixture of horror, worry, and panick in a split second... careful mate... he slowly ventured back, ....knees....shins...tera firma! I remember everyone giving him the good old "choice bro!" and all that. He was a bit pasty looking but also looked like he had found heaven once he became part of the clan again. Wish I had've seen the bus drivers face mate, that would've been classic. But he did give him the big approving pat on the back like he was his own son doing a mans thing in a mans world.

The bus driver was stoked that the water level was just low enough for us to get the bus over and across to each of our homes. Probably thinking "Gotta get these bloody kids home" hahaha. Don't get me wrong, the driver was a pretty alright dude who put up with a lot of crap, and all this happened back when you could chuck the kids in the back of a station wagon on mattresses on the way home from a late night out or whatever, it was just what you did up there at the time.

So cheers Mr Bus Driver and cheers Stunt Dude.....thanks for gettin' us home sweet home!

A Day In The Life of A Bus Full of Raucous Kids on A Flooded Bridge With A Rope

The Brick's Smokin!

Well, the day started with me waking up breathing which was pretty normal really.. happened every day before and every one there after which I'm bloody stoked with! So yeah, just a normal day aye.

Anyway, I used to hang out with a cool chick EVERY weekend. We were MAD MAD MAD bitches. Used to laugh 24/7 with bloody tears streaming down our eyes every time we caught up. My folks used to let me use the car to go do our teenage thing most weekends...bloody legends!

We named the car....... 'THE BRICK'. A streamlined blue Corvette............ hahaha! God no! I wish! Was even more graceful..... it was a minivan... yep. Double doors at the back, wheelbarrow wheels and a good 'putt-putt' sound to go with the classy look. Now it wasn't flashy pants bro! We lived in a land where some still have a long drop for a toilet and one TV channel, or no tv! Woh! Terrible.... (touch of sacrcasm). The Brick was cooooooool! Could fit a couple of big meke as dudes in the back and have the bottom drag and grade the metal road...nice haha.

Well my mate and I started the day out on a road trip to Opononi (Opo). Had to meander through the hard out tiny roads with a gazillion corners, trying not to hit the metal too hard with this mean little blue beast. Now, theres this hill before you get to Opo' that the mini van needed a good bloody decent run up to get to the top.... push the accelerator to the floor a mile back to get a good speed to get up and over to the other side.

....My mate spots a couple of tourists....... shall we? yeh, they're chicks mate... So we stopped half way.... what bloody idiots! I meant us... even though I always thought that chicks who do that shit on their own without a bloke in the middle of nowhere needs their head read anyway! "Hello, hello!", we're smiling, they're not... put the packs in the back....great JUST fit! They were swedish chicks, so they couldn't quite fit comfortably in the back seat... serves them right for having bloody long legs, see.......not practical! Started up The Brick and chucked it into first gear.....shudder, shudder... crunch....shudder, shudder. "Bloody thing! Too much weight!" Yep, they understood that, but in the wrong context haha! Trying to say "no no! you're not fat! just little car!", man where has the logic gone?

So they finally got it in the end after I hopped out and opened up the back door and took their bags out...."heavy!....heavy".... so they were like looking at us like bloody freaks of nature. My mate starts cracking up hard-core, started getting that cackle, which turned into her totally seeing the funny side of life.... she couldn't stop! So I started, and 'the others' just looked on and quickly took their bags away from me and gave me the look as if to say "get the hell away from us!". Probably didn't help with The Brick smelling like a smokin' nest hahaha!

So we managed to get The Brick up the top and waited...and waited... and waited for them to move from where we had dumped them and their contents...."what are they doing?" , hahaha I think they are scared of us mate! hahaha! Waving out.....no response... one of them turned and faced the other way with her arms crossed... what the? Well, we both looked at each other and thought exactly that...who cares, the car wouldn't get up the bloody friggen hill with them in it? Geez, you've got a free ride bro! Come on!.....nah...they obviously didn't feel safe with us chicks in our gumboots, smelly car and annoying cackles...

So we went off on our own adventure, wondering why the hell two chicks obviously not from around these parts, would choose not to travel with us vs waiting for a farmer and his dog to turn up next! Maybe it was The Brick? hmmmm maybe..... so we sparked up, skiddied the ass end of the car and made a dramatic exit and left them to their obviously insane day...

But they missed out on having.....................

 Day In The Life As A Tourist With Two Bloody Crazy Kiwi Chicks

Over and out! :-)

Lethal Mongrels!

THERE WILL BE MORE THAN NORMAL SWEARING IN THIS ONE!

Mate...let me tell you............ this was something that happened to one of my best mates at the time and me...

Now my mate lived not too far away, a couple of paddocks away to be precise. We hung out quite a bit as teenagers (we would have sneaky smokes, listen to The Doors and have a bloody good laugh really). Now one particular night I hooned over to her place with my torch and oversized gumboots, carefully navigating my way as there was this huge ass mother of a drain smack-bang in the middle of it! SLOP SLOP....pulling the 'Gummies' out if they happened to get suctioned in by the mud.

It was the usual sort of a night for us...music, laughter, smoking, dancing like rock queens. We'd wish that Jim Morrison was still alive so we could drool more! Bloody Nora! Anyway, no-one else was at her place at the time, so the house was ours for a few hours so we could live it up! Just had to make sure I didn't go green again... like I did this one night...puking outside by the trampoline wishing I was never introduced to Black Russian!

So, after all our shanannigans... it was time to go home. BOO! She decided to come stay over at my place, and in all our wisdom we decided to walk along the metal road (the Local Council had a lot to answer for mate! Shit roads to the max. Big potholes that could stuff up your steering and rattle the mufflars off your wagon. Walking on the road WAS the best choice at the time coz that big mother of a drain in the paddock was a pain in the ass! Many a lost gumboot in that mud-pit, never to be seen again!

As we walked we reflected on some of the hard-case things each of us had done that night, just so we could laugh and live the moment again, ".....hahahaha! What about when you cracked up! And you spat out that Black Russian all over my face! hahahahaha!...". So upon reading that you will know that we weren't exactly quiet.. The neighbouring farms 5km away would have heard us! It was a valley in the middle of nowhere! Anyway, I don't laugh I cackle so that's even worse.

Now, I immediately stopped my cackle dead in it's tracks because my mate stopped walking and put her hand out in front to stop me. She shone the torch up towards the last bend in the road on the home straight...SHIT! Do they look like eyes? SHIT! SHIT! SHIT! Oh my god! What the hell?....... glowing eyes, heaps of them, dotted and stealthily moving around on the road up ahead. We were a paddock away from her place and frozen to the core...What the hell do we do? They were dogs, not our dogs but a pack of blood thirsty mongrels. We could hear their growls of hate echoing...a horrible, sick, demented noise. We both, out of instinct, slowly moved backwards not keeping our eyes of the horrible glow up ahead. Weren't you supposed to not make any sudden moves in this situation? Why the hell are they moving towards us...."Fuck mate, they're moving towards us!", and at that moment the sickening growls seemed to get louder and louder. They had decided to prey on their next victims.....US! "GO! HELP! FUCKIN GO!", and without any further ado...... we bolted! We had to... and our life depended on it. Our life depended on making every stride count, keeping every scruple we had left and speed...bloody speed!

This next bit actually happened....no lies. If we had to do it again we probably couldn't. Now my mate had big boobs and was bigger than me, but she was bloody fast! We could see her house and the driveway was too far to make it....reaction.....cut left and jumped, yes jumped the Taranaki fence....sailed over...adrenalin pumping! Was I breathing? Or did we get picked up by angels? They were soooo close, so close that I could hear their paws thundering with each step on the road behind.

Focus, focus.... focused on the house lights.....JUMP! Jumped the next fence onto the driveway....GO!GO!GO! We're gonna make it!.....skidded onto the porch and scrambled into safety... heavy breathing, I mean REAL HEAVY breathing, it was like our heart was in our heads...

We looked at each other... eyes bulging out of their sockets... man was she pasty looking! Just made me realise what I probably looked like. We were shaking and then realised that we beat the odds and outrun a pack of lethal mongrels!

Still pumped (was for days), I made the first step to set off a chain reaction...I called my folks who called all the local farmers, who got their guns, who got in their wagons (or on farm bikes), who all met up at that 'last bend', who searched and searched for the killer pack. Nothing to be found! What?! Bummer!

Found out that the local farmers had cattle that had been mauled by these bastards. Apparently these 'hunters' were ex pigdogs that never came back, trained to hunt and bring down their prey with brute force or whatever it took. The odd one was found after that and dealt to, fact of life really.

And I tell ya what! We didn't do that again for a very long time! Bonus was that we were allowed to use the farm bike to and from each others house for awhile... but always looking out for any more opportunist blood thirsty mongrels wanting to bring down their next target.....but we're alive and wake up breathing everyday just so I can tell you what could happen in...

A Day In The Life Of A Kiwi