The Taupo Chronicles
On a bright Saturday morning the bell chimed at 99A , Hillsborough Road at around 8am . There was a faint stirring in one of the bedrooms and Errol poked his head out the bedroom door to find Trevor looking accusingly at him from the doorway. The question written loud on his face was , “ Why the f*ck aren’t you ready yet ??” Errol calmly laid the blame on Mili saying she was not well and therefore had not awoken up. They would be coming later so Trevor and the rest could carry on .
Trevor got back into his car muttering to himself and looking at Gretchen’s questioning countenance announced with a slight snigger , “ They haven’t got out of bed yet , Mili’s not well , it seems , according to Errol .” Gretchen grunted and turned around to cater to Nathan who was wanting to know why Kyle wasn’t coming . Aunty Lizzie meanwhile quietly slipped a potato chip into her mouth , not wanting to show either of the two her sudden weakness for Kettles BBQ flavored chips which she had developed a fancy for the first time the gang had met at Ferrari’s place. She had a stash under the new bed they had bought for her and regularly indulged when T & G went off to work.
They reversed the car out the driveway and headed off to Bajan’s place where they were to rendezvous . The original plan was to have Laila’s mom travel in Errol’s car as the Bajans was already full up with the two kids in their car seats .
Now , poor Laila had to squeeze herself between Kevin and Shaun and luckily, she being the opposite in structure to Dragon Lady No. 1 , was able to fit nicely . However Behram , on hearing that we were coming later, started ranting , “ Then why the hell did we wake up so early , we could have slept for another hour at least ….and where do we pick up the keys from , who’s going to open the door for us , even I should have pretended I was sick etc etc” till his ma-in –law gave him a withering look and he shut up and switched on Bee Gees on his CD player . He then approached Trevor with a huge suitcase grinning sheepishly and requested him to shove it into the Mazda trunk . Trevor looked at it and raising an eyebrow enquired , “ Are you going for a month or what ?”
Anyway , having packed all the stuff in the two cars , they headed off . On reaching Cambridge they stopped for breakfast for an hour and then carried on down the highway . Bajan was leading as he had the GPS fixed in his car and he had very smartly programmed it to take them straight to 21 Stanley Street, Taupo. However he was having a problem with the GPS’s female voice directing him as it reminded him so much of Laila’s back seat driving . He vowed he would email Navman to get them to programme in a robot’s voice the next time they were doing an upgrade.
Meanwhile back at 99A , Hillsborough Road the bags were packed and they were ready to go. After checking that he had all his music for the journey , Errol backed the Ipsum out the driveway and they headed down the motorway. On arriving in Manukau to connect to the Hamilton motorway , Errol took the wrong exit and they suddenly found themselves heading back towards Auckland . Dragon Lady no.2 , not wanting to pass up the opportunity to behave in character , started reprimanding him on his driving skills . He smiled quietly to himself like he usually did and taking the next exit and corresponding on ramp brought them back on course.
Somewhere around Hamilton , Mili received a call from Trevor indicating they had reached , had found the box containing the key but the box itself had a code that needed to be punched in to access the key . After much howing and whating they called the owner who gave them the access code and they were in.
Four pee stops and about 4 ½ hours later the Ipsum glided to a stop behind the Honda and the Mazda at the house on Stanley Street , Taupo . Eating a lovely lunch of sumptuous fish curry and rice the earlier lot pushed off for the Huka Falls , while the four late comers decided to hang back as they had already been there on a previous trip.
Towards evening , Kyle , Nathan and Shaun were already creating havoc around the house and no amount of “one , two ……three” would curb their holiday spirit. The adults were a bit more reserved and settled down to watch TV. Then suddenly realizing that they were on a bloody holiday for crying out aloud !! decided to pep things up with a suggestion from Behram to play dumb charades . After a few false starts they managed to get the game going . A few rounds later the kids were hungry so dinner was served which was a delicious mutton palak prepared by Errol . Post dinner all the mums and Trevor got busy settling their kids down for the night which proved a difficult task as none of them were sleepy. The mattresses were hauled out into the hall and laid down in a row from one end to the other and the kids started using this as a makeshift trampoline.
Meanwhile Behram and Errol decided to turn the holiday excitement up a notch by planning a drive down to Taupo city for Irish Coffee and maybe a glimpse of some nightlife. They got into B’s car , Errol armed with his V-cam got himself and B hooded up and took a few shots of themselves gangsta rapping “ whassup” ( it was a far cry from anything even remotely original or gangsta – imagine a bawa and a makapau attempting to emulate the hoods from Brooklyn and you get the picture ……. ) . On reaching the city they cruised around but could not find any coffee joint or café open . There was just one pub showing signs of life but B in his dirty jeans and white tracks and E in his blue ‘jams didn’t think it would be prudent to step into the place.
B suddenly gasped and slammed the brakes .
“ What the f*ck !” , exclaimed E.
“ I think I just saw a chick with no top on.” whispered Behram, excitement seeping into his voice.
“Where ?”
“Hang on , I’ll just go around this roundabout and cruise back ….keep a look out in that pub on the left.”
“Okay” , said E sitting up in his seat and peeling his eyes open .
B drove around and slowly idled past the pub . True enough there was a woman sitting on a bar stool , her back to us , nursing a drink with seemingly nothing on.
“ I cant see too well , is she really topless ,” breathed B.
“ Welllllll,” answered E , “ it does look like she is bare topped …do you wanna go in and check her out ?:
“ Ummm…ahhh….why don’t we do another round and confirm”, ventured B and did another reversal . This time he drove the car ever so slowly past the pub and both of them literally popped their eyes fully open to allow for maximum light to reflect whatever image was bouncing off the woman into their retinas.
“Nahhh,” declared E , “ She’s wearing a backless top.”
“Ohhhh ,” said B sounding very dejected .
Anyway not finding any Irish coffee anywhere and having had enough excitement for the night the boys quietly drove back home and settled down to watch the Olympics.
The next day dawned dark and dreary as the rain god decided to empty His buckets onto the Taupo region. All plans of driving up to Mt Ruapehu to enjoy the snow ( a plan that was in any case vettoed the previous day owing to the long drive to and fro ) were thrown in the bin. A lovely breakfast of burji was enjoyed with toast . The meal was prepared by Trevor with Gretchen lurking in the background giving instructions :
“ Ok now beat the eggs ….yes you can use a fork ……now add salt ……yes the salt is the white looking powder …..now fry the onions ……throw in the beaten eggs …not the egg shells ….the beaten eggs ……..stir …..stir …..stir ……….try to stir in the kadai not out …..ok now lower the stove setting…….why are you switching the stove off …….here’s your tea …….Trevor the eggs are burning !!........here , let me do it ……..you’re lucky nobody’s awake except U. Reggie who’s busy drinking his tea….you cant even prepare a simple burji without me telling you how ……go and make the beds.”
Trevor, “I thought Errol was making the breakfast”
G , “ Well he did say he would , but you volunteered to get up and do it so ….”
After breakfast , the gang piled into the three cars and headed for Macdonalds where Behram and Errol had spotted a big plane the previous night and thought it would be a good idea for the kids to play in …..reminding them of the big plane in Juhu Park , Mumbai . The rain of course didn’t help and it was a cold , clammy and wet party that trooped into Maccas.
The kids , who’s enthusiasm and spirit couldn’t be dampened , come rain , hail, snow or thunder had a great time . Nathan and Shaun decided to use the loo as a playground and Trevor and Laila had to peel the boys off the floor and haul them into the eating area . The gang ordered their individual meals and sat down to a fast meal that took about a couple of hours . They then went down the road to the bee farm where they tasted an assortment of liquers and honey . The kids then enjoyed themselves in the Volcanic park where the highlight was an enclosure that shooklike an earthquake which the kids freaked out on .
After that they drove back to the lodge .
While T&G and the other oldies went off for an afternoon snooze , Behram , Laila , Mili and Errol settled down to a few rounds of pictionary. They were having such fun that T & G woke up and decided to join in. After delicious walnut cake ( made by Laila ) and tea the group had a few more rounds of dumb charades .The highlight being Behram acting out Chameli and Boom Boom Shakalak ( both topics given to him by Laila ) which kept us in splits watching him attempt to act out the films. After this petered out they tried Coffee Potting . This wasn’t going anywhere as Trevor was dragging the game with his lack of energy and enthusiasm. Errol then suggested word building . The game started off well but Trevor , again , decided to spoil it by butting in with hints and prompts till the group decided he was DONKEY and ousted him from the game . Meanwhile , Errol’s mum was gradually finding herself creeping towards DONKEY by default as all the words were ending with her . She sat there smiling helplessly wondering why …….and Errol’s Dad decided he wanted to accompany her to that unwanted goal by dropping in a few unsolicited prompts himself ….so even though he wasn’t playing , he found himself DONK. Finally , after much tears of laughter the group broke up to have dinner which was a nice chicken curry prepared by Trevor’s mum. They then settled for the night to watch the closing ceremony of the Olympics. Behram and Laila decided to camp out in the hall with the rest of us as he was not being able to sleep owing to his ma-in-law’s stentorian snoring .
The next morning after breakfast , they packed up and drove to the Huka Prawn farm forlunch .Before that they stopped at the HoneyHive to pick up some local honey.
After a sumptuous meal of prawns and fries with garlic bread and chocolate brownie with creamthe group pushed off for home .
And that ended a lovely weekend despite the inclement weather.
