Barmy hordes sidestep backhanded welcome

Mark Bignell and Ange Kerner enjoyed a noisy reception when they picked up their motorhome yesterday. Picture / Greg Bowker

It's a standard nightmare: what if you threw a party and no-one turned up?

Still, the place did look grand. And it actually was rather crowded.

By 9am about 20 Maui Motorhomes and Rental Cars staff members were scattered behind their counters, every one of them decked out in basic black and the now obligatory face paint.

The toilets had been made over in red bunting and the camper vans in black, all the way down to the black duvet covers. Televisions were even showing grainy old All Black-Lions test matches.

To witness the event were at least 20 assorted reporters, photographers and cameramen, representing sundry newspapers, three television shows and two radio stations - one broadcasting live.

The whole circus was intended as a cute backhanded welcome for the horde of Lions fans expected to flood in at any minute to collect their rental vans. After all, Maui had prebooked more than 1000 campervans to rugby and beer-crazed Brits and the odd pack of republican Irish.

Then, right on queue, the Barmy Army stormed in.

Well, Ange Kerner and Mark Bignell stormed in. Make that shyly stepped in from the rain to be pounced on by umpteen pen and pad-wielding journalists.

"Are you barmy?" "Are you drunk yet?" "Where are your mates?" "Cold enough for ya?"

Incisive interviews over, the English couple, from Wellington, went about securing their van as the media pack retired to chat among themselves and think up more inane questions for Barmy Army spokesman Freddie Parker.

Mr Parker remained upbeat, saying most will jet in closer to the big matches.

"If you went to your boss tomorrow and asked for 45 days off, what kind of response would you get? It's quite a premium to be able to get that many days off."

Damp squib does not even begin to describe it.

At least the besieged couple enjoyed themselves. "Well, that was unexpected," deadpanned Mr Bignell. "We're famous, but it looks like we've just had our 15 minutes worth."

And then they were away, clutching some free fuel vouchers thrown in for the delay caused by all those desperate reporters.

Still, Maui general manager Sue Sullivan was steadfastly upbeat about the windfall that'll be heading their way soon.

The company has a fleet of 1600 campervans and judging by advance bookings will have about 1200 on the road at any one time once the tour starts, a lovely situation during what is usually its slowest part of the year. The six-person vans are being rented out at $105 a day. You do the maths.

All the same and despite the premature hoopla, Ms Sullivan doesn't expect big numbers to begin flying in until the first test in Christchurch on June 25. Special police briefings are planned to bring newcomers up to speed on New Zealand road rules.

But judging by supporters' chatrooms, they are already bracing themselves for our unique roading recipe of natural beauty, unnatural aggression and unusual rules.

- additional reporting Errol Kiong