Our return trip to Auckland (or “Dorkland” as the Kiwis refer to it) from the Bay of Islands was mostly uneventful except for one minor adventure. We’d been driving along in our 24-seater bus for about 15 minutes when I heard a car horn blowing somewhere behind us. Dustin also noticed, and he wisely decided to look behind us to see what was up. It turned out the door to the bus trailer carrying everyone’s luggage was open, and a number of cars were trying to get our attention to let us know. Dustin told our driver “Honey,” who immediately pulled over, jumped out of the bus, and asked everyone to come back to the trailer to make sure their bags were there. I wasn’t too worried about our our bags since they’d been at the bottom of the heap, but five our our fellow travelers weren’t so lucky. We’d been traveling along a rural road, going over a number of bumpy single-lane bridges prior to the discovery of the open trailer… nobody said anything out loud, but I’m fairly certain all of us were envisioning those missing five backpacks floating down some unknown stream towards a watery death in the Tasman Sea. Fortunately, a car driver behind us had seen the bags lying on the side of the road and had picked all of them up and brought them to us. Gotta love Kiwi hospitality!
Assessing the casualties