Normal Service Has Resumed

Home then and thank god for that. I much prefer being bored out of my wits on my own couch, fuck you very much. A few final thoughts on The Mount though, for future reference:

1. Turns out what we thought was The Rena, actually wasn’t. Unless it’s sunk in the last 48 hours and no one has told the people. I reckon it’s the latter.

2. Roundabouts are generally including in town planning to speed up the changing of direction and to keep traffic flowing. Not so in Mount Manganui where everyone joins in a game called ‘Let’s see how many cars we can squeeze in between pedestrian crossings’ of which, there are a ridiculous amount across each of the exits of said roundabouts.

3. So if the crossings are always being used and the cars are all backed up, is anyone really going anywhere?

4. Wearing your bikini down the main street is cool, if you live in LA, not so in NZ where it’s a case of undies undies togs and you’re wearing the undies. Not so cool.

5. Why do the majority of people at Carnivals always look like they would be right at home living the life of a carnie? This is not just restricted to The Mount mind you..but I did meet Heath Ledger there, he was running the merry-go-round. True story.

6. And do the residents of The Mount get the shits around this time of the year when their usually sleepy town gets overloaded with horny teenagers, backpackers, gyppos, carnies and boat crews? Given that most of the locals are retired and of an age where the fear of anyone colored and /or foreign is already at panic attack high, then it has to be quite the trip.

So there we go. Rest assured then that normal service has resumed, do not adjust your internets.

Yet another free flowing morning at one of the many Mt Maunganui roundabouts...

They Cancelled New Years?!

Yep, the bastards cancelled New Years.

Here we are in Mt Maunganui aka The Mount, aka Mangas, for New Years and they cancelled the thing on account of it raining for a few days before hand. Eight hours to get here, only to find it gets called off for a bit of moisture. What a bunch of fucktards.

Not that a road trip up here should actually take that long mind you but I made the elementary error of not actually consulting a map in detail before hand, as every fella should do. Especially one who has had the exceptional military and martial art training I’ve had.

Oh sure, I had a fair idea where to go and got here we did, but I missed valuable time and fuel saving routes which, in the jungle, would get a man killed. There are no petrol stations in the jungle, only Charlie and he doesn’t take five cent discount vouchers.

Not all of the festivities were canned mind you, the fire works were still fired off which was great by all accounts, if you were directly underneath them. Not so if you were anywhere that required squinting and peering through the thick cloud because then you were right shit out of luck.

Still, I suppose when you’ve got a barge full of high explosives sitting out in a busy harbour you can’t really leave them floating about for too long, the last thing Tauranga wants right now is another maritime disaster on its shores. They say that there’s no such thing as bad press but having an inbound oil tanker collide with a shitload of fireworks you never let off because it was ‘a bit damp’ would well and truly test that theory, I reckon.

Did I mention that we can see the Rena from our corner of the beach? Not so close that we can see the dudes on board changing their minds, but close enough to sit there and think that, all environmental impacts aside, it would be kind of cool to see the thing crack in two whilst watching…

The sailors from the Rena are all around the place too. At least we think that’s who they are; there can’t be too many all male tour groups of Asian descent, dressed in several layers of thick clothing despite the mid twenty temperatures, that choose Tauranga as their Christmas destination of choice.

Despite the cancellations, which I’m pretty sure was just a few bands along the main drag that nobody would’ve actually turned up to see anyway, Mangas still went ‘off’. At least I think that’s what you could call a whole bunch of dudes in cars driving around the place revving and tooting and yelling out of the windows.

Remembering that this is midnight of course and there are numerous backyard fireworks displays happening at the same time and it all started to feel a little bit like downtown Baghdad on a good day. Only with Brotown accents.

However the most disturbing aspect of all this cancellation business was not that they flagged New Years, because lets be honest, I haven’t done that shit since that fateful night alone in a hotel room in ’99. No, it was that the Miss Mt Maunganui titty and thong fest, I mean beauty pageant, was cancelled.

What a disappointment for those girls that had lined up to be salivated over by the many men around here who would’ve lined up for the free perve aye? What are those girls going to do with their time now?

They’ll probably have to make do with a couple of married guys sitting on the beach pretending to look at the Rena, that’s what.

Mt Maunganui - Land of the Weird

Welcome, then, to Tauranga, the city where laws like having to wear a helmet whilst cycling and not using your cellphone whilst driving were made to be broken.

And you and I both know that these perps would’ve gotten to that state via gateway misdemeanours like jay walking and not actually fully coming to stop at a stop sign..

Not that there’s anything new in that state of lawlessness, my history with this part of the world includes being the place where I learnt - and first got caught - shoplifting. It was the classic rookie error too, I reached above the ice cream fridge / counter thing to steal a chocolate bar, because I didn’t think the shopkeeper could see me doing so….through the glass.

It’s also the place where I had my first interracial sexual experience. I kissed the Maori girl from next door that I fancied on the cheek. I think we were 10.

See my father lived in Greerton and in the years before his eternal paternal abandonment I would holiday here with him for months on end, or whenever it suited Mother to have me back which as far as I was concerned, was always way too soon. Them were good times.

My father’s then soon to be wife was a hottie who had a thing about leaving bowls of lollies on the table as a snack. Naturally being under the age of pubes and starved of such a thing back in the real world, I gulfed them down like a kid with diabetes.

In fact everyone was forever giving me lollies. The stoners next door would buy me bags of the things just for cutting down a bush with the wooden sword Dad made me, whilst said sexy Step Mum let me pick what I wanted as a $10 mixture for one of my birthdays. And that was back in the day when things cost a cent!

We’re not staying in Greerton though, the extended ClubDes family and I. No we’re in Mt Maunganui, one of the countries hotspot's at this time of the year. Fuck knows why because this place is distinctly average. Oh sure, it has a beach but the Gold Coast it ain’t.

The holiday house we’re staying in is quaint, in an ‘everything is bloody backwards’ way, like the light switches which are in the last places you expect them to be and gates open outwards, not inwards. That kind of thing.

The owners must be grandparents too because there are kiddie locks on everything, the ones that require a degree in dexterial engineering to open them. Those things are going to be a shitter when the arthritis kicks in. Maybe just teach your kids not to go into cupboards aye?

Crimes against fashion runs into their thousands up this way and far be it from me and my Scott Disick GQ style to criticise but some people round here are dressing themselves in the dark, surely. All of which just adds to the ‘weird’ factor of the place really.

Like the Upper Hutt Posse across the road who had a skateboard and bongo drums party the first night we were here. I kid you not. There were more black metal tee shirts on show than one of those Asian run knock off shops and yes they did get the Led out around midnight, but yet somebody bought the drums…

Still, it’s a holiday which means you don’t really give a shit about those things. Besides, I pulled up alongside a mint, cherry red Dodge Charger in the main street the second day and the sight and sound of it will keep the mecaphilliac wank bank stocked nicely thanks very much.

Roll on New Year’s, maybe then I'll discover what all the fuss about this place is really about...

The missus and I are making this place look good, real good.