Rabi Bus Trip
Beez Neez now Chy Whella
Big Bear and Pepe Millard
Thu 2 Jul 2015 22:37
Rabi Island Bus Trip Up to the
‘City’ At exactly eight o’clock we launched ourselves up into the
back of the truck-bus and set off along the bumpy ‘highway’. Through the dust we
had glimpses of the scenery. Not entirely sure what
use the side window served.
For most of
the-hour-and-a-bit-thirty-pence-three-miles-as-the-crow-flies-journey, we could
see hills to the front and hills
to the back.
Clearly, ‘proper
buses’ are not man enough for the task. I wonder when our truck-bus came off the assembly line, it knew what life
it was headed for......
Looking up the
High Street, the Council Offices on the right. Looking down the street, Post Office on the
left.
This morning we had a mixture of
workers putting their machetes thoughtfully under their seats and school
children of varying ages. The two and bit hour return journey saw shopping to be
delivered along the way, pandanus grass going home to
be woven, small children being posted on board and
gathered when mum remembered – sometimes as the driver was pulling away,
sleeping babies finding a random and welcoming lap to continue with the Zzzz’s
and several sacks of copra, all good-naturedly
handled.
We stopped at a
fuel station on the way home, our most patient and somewhat gorgeous driver reckons to put eight gallons in a day. He makes
this journey up at eight, down at twelve, up at one thirty and back at four, he
also does school runs around Nuku and a few deliveries when the ‘big ship’ –
modest sized freighter, comes in once every ten days or so. We had read it was
wise to take a cushion, but none of us wanted to lug them around. I have to say
the skidding factor of a cushion would have made the whole thing more
uncontrollable than it already was. People didn’t mind if the driver missed a
gear on a steep bit and we all concertinaed into one another, you just scooped
yourself up, returned to your vague start point and smiled. One lucky lady found
herself in the front with the driver and no sooner than we had stopped at the
senior school than she found herself with two strip lights balanced between her
legs, a bag of tools to hold and a box of extension plugs on the dashboard in
front of her, their owner leapt in the back with us to find no seat so he stood
and dangled with others. A rather large man had got in beside our lady in the
front as he couldn’t manage to cock his leg from the top step over into the bit
in which we all waited quietly. Stops in the middle of nowhere saw people appear
to collect a bag of rice here, a mysterious carrier bag there or simply
schoolchild.
We settled on the bus for our
homeward leg and set off northward. After half an hour we did a u-turn by a few houses and picked several passengers up.
We took a slightly different route back stopping at the hospital where many got
off. Then we briefly stopped back where we had begun, our starting here at least
gave us seats, the group who climbed aboard now had to hold on to anything they
could if they couldn’t reach the ceiling grating. Later we turned into the
senior school and our visiting policeman continued his good-will tour.
Back in our village, the driver
stopped by the pre-school, reversed as far as he could to the old copra shed
where the boys helped to off-load the sacks people
had so easily trampled over with nothing more than a smile.
We stayed on the bus, passing our
stop – just to say we had done the full Monty. The journey was just another ten
minutes on the windward, southern end before we did a circle and returned to our
start point. The little ones welcomed us back.
Baby
Beez waiting for our return and perhaps the
tide.........
ALL IN ALL GOOD FUN DAY OUT –
BUT NOT EVERYDAY
YET ANOTHER UNIQUE
EXPERIENCE |