(photograph © Kiwidutch)
We were driving down the Main North Road in Christchurch New Zealand, on our way to the Redwood Sequoia 88 for dinner when all of a sudden we spy a vehicle that makes us do a double take.
In the traffic in front of us is a double decker bus! You know, the sort that you usually expect to see going around Picadilly Circus or past Buckingham Palace… but not standing at traffic lights about 16.000,- kilometres from home.
We are probably about as far from the United Kingdom as it’s possible to get… so that leaves me wondering how on earth it got here. Maybe it just started out on Route 36 to Paddington and took a wrong turn somewhere?
The nearest “Victoria” I know of to here, is the State of the same name in Australia! The distance between Christchurch and Melbourne is 2404 kilometres (1493 miles) and most of that involves a very large expanse of water!
It’s turning down the same street we will be once the traffic lights change, but since the restaurant and the friends we are meeting is on this corner we loose sight of it by the time we make it around the intersection.
Actually, once I start thinking about it I seem to have a few very hazy kid memory’s of a double decker bus in Christchurch once before, but that was way back in the 1970′s when the Christchurch hosted the Commonwealth Games.
I remember being at my Grandparents house and getting to watch more TV than ever in my life before (that alone was memorable) … Kiwi runner John Walker shone in the athletics and a weightlifter from somewhere, dropped some very large weights off the stage of the James Hay Theatre, which sent the spectators in the first rows below him scattering for their lives…
Is this the same bus after all these years? I’m double decker impressed if it is!
Little Mr. of course was just as pleased as punch to have seen a double decker bus… squeals of delight ensued. No …sorry we can’t chase it, No …they probably wouldn’t let you ride on it and No… I have no clue where it’s going.
Just another of life’s little mysteries… a double decker down-under.
(photograph © Kiwidutch)
(photograph © Kiwidutch)
“The nearest “Victoria” I know of to here, is the State of the same name in Australia! ” then the driver needs to reset his Tom Tom (GPS)
Comment by Piglet in Portugal — October 5, 2012 @ 6:24 am |
Piglet,
“Our Lady of the TomTom” has sent us around the block and up the garden path (and one of the funniest occasions of this happened in Portugal too (here: http://kiwidutch.wordpress.com/2010/10/09/new-137/ )
…so who knows LOL ?!!! However a very large set of water-wings would have been needed to get across that “not quite so small” obstacle of the Tasman Sea
Comment by kiwidutch — October 5, 2012 @ 1:25 pm |
Apparently you can find them in the States as well
Comment by Tilly Bud - The Laughing Housewife — October 5, 2012 @ 9:38 am |
No Tilly,
surely not!…. aren’t they are just large yellow buses that are so far off the ground they “look” like double deckers
Joking aside, I suppose it’s logical that there have been some posted around the world for the sake of advertising or for a commercial reason … it CERTAINLY caught my eye to see an icon of London transport on a Kiwi road!!!
Comment by kiwidutch — October 5, 2012 @ 1:30 pm |
A bus like that wouldn’t fit in narrow streets of Seville.
Comment by Doggy's Style — October 5, 2012 @ 3:19 pm |
Doggy,
Your comment made me laugh because I once saw a removal van get stuck trying to turn a corner in some small streets in a small Dutch town. It was in the news later that it got so tightly wedged against the houses that they were forced to dismantle the front of the truck in a manner that the vehicle’s maker probably never foresaw possible. It was messy… ouch on many levels.
I’ve never been to Seville but Himself and I have been down some wickedly narrow streets in France and Portugal (usually unintentionally) and we had doubts about our car getting though! … a double decker bus? eek!!!)
Comment by kiwidutch — October 5, 2012 @ 6:38 pm |
I also regularly see one here in Auckland, over at the North Shore
Comment by rsmacaalay — October 7, 2012 @ 7:44 am |
Raymund,
Is it a tourist bus? or for a commercial company (advertising etc.) It would be a cool way to see the city if it was a tourist bus.
Comment by kiwidutch — October 7, 2012 @ 8:34 am |