A screw up by the Kiwi Office leaves me desperately trying to leave for Lake Tekapo.
Distance: Bus, 256km, Walk, 6km
Total Distance: 5775km
A couple of weeks ago I rang the Kiwi Experience office to organise my buses for the rest of the trip. Normally this is a relatively straight forward affair, me giving them dates and them answering "yes". Easy.
Instead this time I got
"That should be fine"
"Erm...does that mean I'm on the bus or not?"
"Yes, you should be fine and all set"
"But what does 'should' mean? There's a list for the bus, am I on it or not?"
"Well... We're sorting out a lot of people's itineraries at the moment."
"So, do I need to call back later?"
"No, you should be on the bus, that should be fine."
THAT MAKES NO SENSE!!!
There are lists on each bus for who should be there. This normally limits the numbers on the bus to the number of seats and stops random people getting on. A sensible, simple system. That today got ignored.
I had to get up early to get from my hostel, down through the streets of little Queenstown, and out to where the bus was waiting. There I was met by a horde of 18-25s, looking slightly confused and worried, as 3 different Kiwi Buses waited. On of these was going to Milford Sound, but the other two were both for Lake Tekapo.
I jumped on the first bus, giving my name and handing over my ticket.
"Your not on the list... Can you see your name on the list"
She was right I wasn't on the list.
There were a few of us, as it turned out, all promised seats that weren't there. But we had two buses when usually there would be one. Surely there were loads of seats? Ah, but at the other end we'd each need a bed. Kiwi promises everyone on the bus a bed for the first night of every stop. With this many people the hostel was booked out beyond capacity.
"I can let you on if you have accommodation organised for this evening."
So began 5 minutes of panicked googling and calling hostels. The third had a spare bed! Saved! I informed the driver.
"Sweet. Now we just have to make sure you can leave for Christchurch."
"Oh, no worries, I have accommodation booked there already."
"That's fine but there's only one bus leaving Lake Tekapo tomorrow and it's not smaller than this one."
Who the heck as organising this circus?!?
At the first stop, along with a few other orphaned travellers, called the office to find out where in the system we were. No where, apparently. Thankfully, by good fortune, we were all able to find seats on the buses we wanted.
Crisis over, time for Tekapo.
The sky above Lake Tekapo is said to be the second darkest in the world. As such it is advertised as the perfect place to see stars, planets, and the Milky Way. Canterbury university has a telescope on top of Mount John by the lake for international research and pays some of the bills by showing the universe to tourists.
As ever, the weather came into play, however. The sky was white that afternoon, threatening rain and not shifting. During the afternoon I climbed Mt John. The view was spectacular (standard New Zealand) showing the great, wide, glacial valley, deep blue lake at its centre, huge mountains surrounding. Off to the south these mountains were becoming engulfed by the clouds and impressive amounts of rain. Reaching the circuit around the top of Mt John I was hit by the winds the township was sheltered from. Yet a scrap of blue sky wasn't to be seen. Star gazing was off for tonight.
No comments:
Post a Comment