The Adventure that shouldn’t have

I bought this bus for us to live in while I built us a house at a Community in Golden Bay.

It had been owned by several other Community members before me and was last driven some years before. On that trip, from the Far North to Golden Bay Nelson, the bus had been grossly overloaded with all her possessions included many thousands of books. During this trip the fuel system had malfunctioned and a drum for diesel had been installed just behind the drivers head on top of piles of possessions {no return fuel lines nothing!} Filling up must have looked odd to the petrol station attendants when the nozzle was poked in through the window. The dying engine was also emitting copious amounts of smoke, mainly out through the breather. This requiring frequent top ups and also stops for the driver to recover from the fumes. At one stage they had a drum of oil feeding by hose into the dipstick pipe to provide a constant infusion. The bus eventually arrived at the Community, just…, breathed a sigh of relief and was towed to various locations by tractor after that.

Once we had permanent housing I sold it to a prospective member but a few months later he changed his mind about living there, (sensible man), so I agreed to try and sell it again on his behalf. Lots of fun, all care and

no responsibility, just how I like it.

I eventually sold it again, complete with the lurid descriptions of it’s last trip, and offered to tow it out over the Wainui Hill. This hill was gravelled, winding with a precipice to the ocean on one side and a cliff with numerous slips on the other. Tourist buses and camper vans frequently traversed the hill to Totoranui in the Able Tasman National Park, there were two schoolbuses twice a day and it was a rural delivery and dairy tanker route. I intended to use our 4WD tractor to tow it over the hill and after that a truck could do the rest further past Takaka.

In preparation I checked in with the police. They said the tow-er is supposed to be heavier than the tow-ee but if the tractor was road registered,(which it was) we won’t be bothered, pick a quiet time of the day, let us know when you’re doing it, and thanks for calling Doi. Cool, this started to look like an adventure happening. Shortly after this I was away for a few weeks, leading a convoy of buses taking a school on a South Island tour and came back to find the bus was gone. I heard about it’s journey later and it was not a happy story.

Goes like this; the new owner got a local odd-job mechanic to have a look at the bus but chose not to tell him the stories of it’s last trip. UH OH. The mechanic figured, yeah, just hook up an outboard motor fuel tank and we’re off eh. I wonder if he ever pondered on why the new owner had prepared by providing many many litres of oil? And why it was USED oil!!!?

This gets to be a dirty story here so any sensitive souls should pop off the bed with a hot milk OK? :<) As I am told they eventually got it fired up, Well Done! No, really it was !! and just set off. The trip went well for the first few kilometres along the flats, rolling through the pristine countryside waving to the bemused dairy farmers, the mechanic driving and no doubt feeling really pleased about his successful work. The motor was warming up nicely, perhaps he wondering about all the oil being poured in but then that would be why there was a bit of smoke around, wasn’t it? He probably became aware of the plume of effluent they were trailing behind but they were committed now! Onward and upwards.

Then they got to the Wainui Hill DRUM ROll DA DA!!

Just a few corners up this tricky incline the motor said “No thanks”!! Well probably not quite so politely but that was the definite message. Something very terminal let go inside the motor, pressurised the sump and blew all the oil out through the tappet cover breather. There was a sudden massive deluge of hot and untasty oil all through the front of the bus. Woo Hoo. The driver pulled over, well he tried too but he and the windows were covered in hot oil, so the bus gracefully dipped it’s nose into the hillside ditch and it’s arse twitched across the road towards the drop. After a short time there were several, well quite a few, no lots and lots really, of people and their vehicles stuck on either side and quickly losing their sense of fun about it as the driver and new owner “worked out what to do”. I believe there might have been a bit of the old raised voices here and there. Ah Ha. The Police were alerted by radio from the tour buses and the circus continued. No rescue/towing vehicle could easily get to the bus due to all the other vehicles already on the road. It soon became obvious that the bus had to carry on somehow so it was man/woman handled back onto the road and everyone stood back. Well not quite everyone as the driver and new owner had resumed their stations and “fired” it up. Now the reason everyone else stood well back was because they were not blind nor without olfactory senses and it was clear that the two now inside had not become drenched in oil without just cause. How right they were, for as soon as the motor was started, minor miracle itself surely, it belched forth oil and smoke and flames from every orifice and the bus lurched and stumbled it’s way towards the top of the hill with the driver halfway out the side window trying to see, the owner coughing and choking and pouring in more oil, as the smoke and noises of the self-destructing engine got worse and worse. It eventually made it to the top and then with the motor completely, really, toes up dead, was rolled down the other side and there it stopped. The mechanic never went near it again, I think it was towed away by the local carrier towards Takaka where it had been destined to be a kids bedroom but from what I heard of the oil dripping from the ceiling and walls from front to back it has probably never rose above chook house status.

The mechanic was not happy because he imagined I had misled the new owner about it’s condition. The new owner was not happy, well you can imagine several reasons why eh?

The police were not smiling…at least not officially as the bus was not Rego’d, CoF’ed, it had had no licensed driver, had blocked the road to bulk traffic and all contrary to the previous agreement with me. Ouch

All I could think of was how sensible I had been not to try and move the dear old thing myself.

Whew