Ross and Russ
Travel Location: Mount-Maunganui,New-Zealand
Do you ever wonder whether there is someone out there who looks exactly like you and even more freakier, maybe even have characteristics exactly like yourself?????
Now I never really thought about this until we met this guy on the Magic Bus on leaving Wellington. Now this guy is the spitting image of Michelle’s friend Ramsey. As soon as we saw him, both me and Michelle did a double take and were like “Ramsey????”!!!! Its uncanny particularly after we started speaking to him and he even sounded like Ramsey to a tee!!!!!
Haha, so I nicknamed him Romsey……..haha…Ross and Russ from friends anyone?!!!!! But Ramsey neednt worry about being replaced by his spitting image as one of Michelles best friends because exactly like in Friends, Romsey, um, lets just say isnt one of the most chirpiest chappies on this planet. To say he was depressing would be a touch harsh but not totally off the mark either……and my, this guy could talk for America….and not in a good way…..I think he could talk most insomniacs to sleep!!!!
Sitting across the aisle from Michelle, I saw Romsey start talking to Michelle from the seat behind. As the music was blaring out from the bus sound system I couldnt quite hear the conversation so thought I d just be polite (rather than to strain my neck up close to the poor guy and repeat “pardon?” the entire time) and just sit back, put on my own iPod and let Michelle and him carry on with their conversation. Anyways, 10 , 20 minutes pass and even a couple of hours……..everytime I looked over I could still see Romseys mouth moving on his expressionless face ….then I would look over at Michelle and see her as she tried desperately to stay awake…her eyes glassy as she strained to keep them open! And he must not have noticed because the following day……there were no seats left on the bus by the time he was picked up from his hostel so he made a beeline for the seat next to Michelle and over the course of 2 hours all I could hear was his voice and this was over and above the music from the sound system! When he finally got off in Taupo……even the girls sitting next to Michelle couldnt resist a look of amazement as to Romseys vocal abilities!!!!!!!!
Anyways, back to the travelling! So the two days upon leaving Wellington was a complete blur. The first overnight compulsory stop was Napier and quite frankly, I took only one photo (and this was of the empty open air stage by the sea) and can´t remember anything special at all about the place. Greg our new driver was not the most informative….he told us there were many activities to participate in Napier but failed to actually mention what these were.
The following day, the bus dropped people off at Taupo, a small town sitting on the edge of a lake bigger than the size of Singapore. Taupo is perhaps best known as the cheap skydiving capital of NZ……..but as with the rest of NZ, we were short for time and couldn´t stay….otherwise, I would have obviously done a sky dive…yeah no doubt about that (haha….oh what a little white lie!!!)
Then it was a stop at Rotorua, the adventure capital of NZ´s North Island…….the place to do anything from the famous Zorbing (rolling down a hill in an inflated bubble ball with a few other people just as nuts as you are-sounds amazing seriously!) to a gravity free fall (something I had always wanted to try….like skydiving but without the actual falling – I have a fear of falling in case you didn´t realise!) to the Agro Jet (high speed jet boat zooming down the river) to the Luge (even better with a scenic, an intermediate and an advanced track!) and also perhaps the stinkiest place in the whole country! Oh my god…..there is all this geo thermal activity and the place is swamped with geothermal mud pools so the air is ridden with sulphur which makes it all extremely stinky!!!!! But apparently everyone there lives longer or have less illnesses because of this sulphurised air. So great…..you stink but will live forever.
So anyways, we arrived in Rotorua and I was hoping to try the gravity freefall or even just the Luge but you know what the silly Magic bus does? It gets you into Rotorua about 12:30 and gives you until 3:30 in Rotorua and you think “great, plenty of time to go off and do one of these activities”. Well think again people because, all these places are not in the centre of Rotorua so you have to take the free hourly shuttle bus which is fine except that there´s no frigging shuttle bus at 1pm so you have to wait until almost 2pm for the next one and then the next shuttle bus back into town is something silly like 3:20pm so you only have 1hr 20 min and still get back in time just to see the Magic bus driving off.
In other words, it was a complete waste of our time to be in Rotorua…..we had a nice lunch then walked around town…..and still we had to find a cafe to sit in to kill time. (But we did manage to find the funniest resturant/bar name ever in Rotorua…..haha…..it was called PHEASANT PLUCKER!!!! Try saying that quickly and see what you actually say instead!!!!)
By the time we got to Mount Maunganui which is the surfing capital of NZ and where beachfront homes cost millions (one bedroom one bathroom beachfront property recently went on the market for NZ$3M!!!! and Greg pointed the house out to us…..it was not big that´s all I can say!), we had just enough time for a stroll along the beach before the sunset and the end of our stay in Mount Maunganui!!!!
