Jim Eagles: To hell with the bus, I'll fly

The decision to end the Overlander train service between Auckland and Wellington at the end of next month has brought lots of fond memories flooding back of an age when rail was king - sleepless nights on unyielding seats, stewed tea and concrete rock-cakes, sunrises seen through fogged-up windows, bleary-eyed arrivals at vast windswept stations.

Ah, those were the days. Appalling at the time, romantic in retrospect, and now - with the end of passenger rail services in the North Island - gone forever. Seems a pity, but I suppose it was inevitable, given that it's faster by plane and more convenient by car.

And the sad truth is that all those people who are busy bemoaning the demise of the Overlander rarely, if ever, used it.

But I can't help thinking there should still be a way for those who want to take their time, savour the passing panorama outside the windows and enjoy the interaction with other passengers.

And there is a way. It's called the bus. Buses still run to most parts of the North Island, even to Wellington, on a daily basis.

What's that? You've never tried a long-distance bus. You can't imagine what it would be like. Well, you're in luck. Herald writer Michele Hewitson went by bus to Tauranga for an interview. Here's her report on the experience.

A snippet of conversation, punctuated by the rustle of a king-size bag of crisps, from the back seat of the Intercity return bus from Tauranga on a beautiful winter's day. "Have a chip."

"What kind?" "Chicken." "Hate chicken." "Have a chip." "What kind?" "Chicken." "Hate chicken. Eff you." "No, eff you." "No, eff you." And so on.

"I think," I said politely, before vacating my seat which was the one in front of the back seat and - in retrospect - a silly mistake, "I'll leave you to it."

"Snooty honky," was the response. I was glad to have been some help in restoring harmony between the couple on the back seat. I was a snooty honky and the formerly bickering couple were in complete agreement on this matter.

As was my boss, who had much earlier in the day sent me a one-word text in response to my grizzles about bus travel: "Snob."

It takes four long hours to get to Tauranga and four very long hours to get back. It cost $80. I wore a suit because I was going to interview somebody and because ... I wasn't thinking.

At the bus station at SkyCity at 7am I was the only person wearing a suit. The bus left at 7.30am. By 7.45am I was the only person on the bus wearing a suit and lipstick. And a fluffy with the hood up, and gloves and a newspaper. I didn't look like a snob. I looked like a lunatic.

Actually, it was quite pleasant, comparatively, on the ride to Tauranga. There was a sense of camaraderie akin to that which exists, I imagine, among unfortunates sent to spend time in Siberia. I texted anyone I could think of that there was ice on the inside of the windows. That there I was wrapped in newspaper, like a bum on a park bench. Nobody believed me.

Our driver, a cheery, long-suffering chap, announced in response to a timid request from a visiting American to turn the heater up, that he couldn't. It was broken. It had been broken for some time and just the other day he'd had to give his fleecy jacket to an old lady before she died of hypothermia.

He didn't really say the hypothermia bit. I did.

I tried my best to do an impression of an old lady about to die of hypothermia in the hope that he'd feel similarly sorry for me. It didn't work because, at a guess, I looked more like a lunatic wrapped in a newspaper.

Before I left, a few people, once they stopped laughing, said, "Oh, well, it'll be a nice trip. You can look out the window, read your book."

It might have been nice to look out the window, except for the ice. And it's difficult to read a book when your hands, despite the gloves, are shaking with cold, and when you are bundled up like a badly packaged parcel.

I read the newspaper. Some bits were hard to read, being upside down.

When we arrived in Tauranga the nice driver said that if I was coming back with him on the 1.30pm bus I should be prepared to be boiling hot. I thought this was a joke. It wasn't.

This wasn't why the photographer who picked me up was laughing. He was laughing because I'd come on the bus. He thought this must have been because I'd lost my licence.

It wasn't. It was because I've never really had a licence. When I was 15 a traffic officer gave me one but the driving instructor went pale at this news and made me promise never to go on the road. This is because I can't drive.

There were quite a few people on the return journey. Some of them were probably quite nice. The conversationalists behind me would have been entertaining but for the fact I feared I might be caught up in a domestic. I would have had to have taken the side of the woman. I hate chicken chips, too.

There were two girls on the bus, about 13 and trying to look 18, in little tops and tiny skirts.

I sat across the aisle from these girls after fleeing the potential domestic in the back seat. The girls were eating pies. I couldn't help but hope they get fat, young. They played very loud music on their mobile phones. They danced in their seats.

Their conversation went like this: "Bleep, yeah, did you see me? I was like, bleep, bleep, and then I was like, bleep, bleep, bleep."

They finished their pies and began chewing gum. I asked them to turn the music off. They rolled their eyes and giggled. They started dancing in their seats again. The one nearest me slapped the arm of my seat in time to the beat.

They blew gum bubbles and popped them in my direction. They blew up a paper bag and popped that.

They shrieked and said, "Bleep, yeah, did you see me? I was, like, wasted, bleep, like, yeah." When we stopped at Thames I changed seats. The couple down the back lurched up the aisle, rushed into the cafe and emerged with bags of dripping, greasy things. They chain-smoked some of the barely used butts they'd stored up for the journey, then put them back in the pack.

That was forward planning. Every time we stopped to pick up or drop off - you are not allowed to get off unless you are getting off - they'd leap from the bus, light a butt and stand their ground until the driver threatened to leave without them. Then they'd shove the butt back in the packet. But, but, but ... things may be looking up for bus travellers. There were better-smelling fried things on offer a couple of weeks later when Intercity held a launch for its fabulous new "Mega Coach". There were wontons and prawn toasts. And blue cheese and fruit. And Mark Gosche came. It was held at Alexandra Park.

The invitation to this event wasn't in my name. It said: VIP Passenger. But I figured they owed me.

I met Daniel Rode, the sales and marketing manager. He had a marvellous name for a man in the bus game. Not everyone picks up on that, he said.

I asked him if the people who worked for the buses ever went on the buses. He said they did. I said I bet they were made to. He said, well, yes, they were, but they wanted to.

There was a speech to launch New Zealand's first 13.5m passenger coach. It was as high as "three cars stacked on top of each other". The chief executive, Malcolm Johns, told us that the coach (which sounds grander than bus) is green. He cited a British study about how coach transport "had the lowest CO2 emissions per passenger-kilometre travelled".

I felt rather superior. Another text from my boss: "Jeanette Fitzsimons would be proud of you." There wasn't a Green in the room.

A man with a very fake moustache blew a whistle and said "All aboard." I think that's what he said. I was laughing quite a lot at the time.

We went out to the racetrack. There was music playing over a loudspeaker. It was Carmina Burana. A sample lyric: "Fate - monstrous and empty, you whirling wheel." A bus has, I suppose, whirling wheels.

"That's a big mother of a coach," said a man from a travel agency.

But would he go on it, to Wellington?

"I don't do coaches," he said.

It is a beautiful bus. It has upstairs and down. It has comfortable seats. It has a loo. It has, presumably, a heater that works. It takes 11 1/4 hours to get to Wellington.

We went round and round the racetrack. I reclined in my seat and thought: This could be nice. You could create a little cocoon of light and, hopefully, warmth, and read as the wheels whirled through the night.

This sounds quite attractive. But I won't be going on it. Not unless InterCity appoints me chief coach police officer. Because hell on buses is other people on buses. And that's because other people on buses take no notice of the fact that there are other people on buses.

Somehow, a seat, because it's paid for, becomes a bubble from which you can play loud music without headphones, blow gum bubbles and pop them, make loud and boring cellphone calls, eat stinky food; receive text messages without turning your phone to silent as even the lunatic in a suit did.

When I got back from Tauranga I phoned my boss. He said he had told the big boss about my adventure.

The big boss said: "Why didn't she fly?"