Tour Of NZ 2004. Random Selection of touring pics.

From New york to flordia 2003-2004 People I met along the way.

Selection of Oz pics after being overseas

A crazy mad scotswoman, who set me up well.

The wee scots woman, who made the starting tour of England, scotland and ireland very interesting indeed.

Yes she does look very nice, kind and friendly. But underneath all that is the devil! The devil I tell you! Why? Well this is how it all happen. It was sept/oct 2003, Haggis bus tour of the Uk. By chance, I discovered a girl who was sharing my dorm room was on the exact tour as myself. Long story short, we turned up too the bus tour with our very large suit cases. Very unbackpacker like, where we met a 3rd person with a large suit case. So we became the 3 people who had to wait till the very end to load a suit cases on the bus, while everyone else had their backpacks loaded. The little scotswoman, above was doing all the packing. As we started to load our bags, she suddenly turned to me right in front of the 2 girls with suitcases and told me, I was farking crap for having, such a large suit case. (think very thick scotish accent. Very thick!) Now look at the picture again, look hard. Doesn't she seem so sweet? My reaction was stunned shock, followed by laughter. As this is the type of shit stirring I've grown up with in the far north of Australia. I turned to the girls with me and said aloud, I like her.. but I think she comes on to hard. Laughing I boarded the bus, with only myself, the 2 girls and the scotish female bus driver only aware of the exchange had at the back of the bus.

As the tour took off for bath city, in western england. We both started to take shots at each other. While we headed out of london. Though, it appears to a certain crowd on the bus, 5-8 woman age 35-45. I just started to rudely pick and taught the female scotish bus driver. She was this lovely, nice, friendly small woman, who would not harm a fly or cause any problems, but here was this outback mining town bred uncultured barbarian harassing her to hell and back again. Is the imagine these woman had formed. Though at the time I didn't notice their negative reactions.

When ever I could get in the phrase "you're crap" in a thick scotish accent into the exchange, the better. An example would be, she makes a mistake driving, crunching the gears, I'd cough, she'd look up at me via the rear vision mirror, I'd say "you're crap bus driver" But I still like ya. She'd pull a funny face and we'd both have a laugh. As the day went on, she asked me a few times was I upset with her and she had only been playing with me. I said, No I am fine. THis is exactly how we interact where I am from.. I'm enjoying it. I asked, was I stirring her to hard or crossing the line? She said, no it was fine. Made the trip interesting.

Things seem to be going well. Seeing the sights on england as we headed further away from london. It was at our very first stop 4-5 hours into the trip, that I first notice, the old mothers club giving me a very negative vibe. To shorten the story down some, it got worse. Once they learnt my background and where I was from, they instantly painted me as an outback old fashion male. Who thought women belong in the kitchen. Thats without even speaking to me. Once I learnt, these woman had become extreme frosted to me, I approach the wee scotswoman, to help her sorts this out. As the whole thing had been taken out of context and that they'd missed our exchange outside the bus and how we both were just having fun.

Well, this is were the devil in the wee scotswoman comes out. She turns to me and tells me, she'll have it all sorted out, no problem. I nod and we talk a little before we approach the group of older woman and she begins to talk with me about 3-4 feet standing behind her. As I listen to her starting to speak, I suddenly dumb struck. For coming out of her mouth, is that I was the devil, that she was this small little scotish woman, just trying to do her job and this big mean australian male, just keep picking on her and she almost felt crying. I think my mouth was about 6 foot wide open in amazement. I saw the look on all the older womans faces. I think, it was the look of death for myself in their eyes, that made me blink once or twice. I quickly spoke up and said, what the!?! The scots woman, broke out laughing and jumped in and explained, she was only joking and she had started outside the bus and we'd both been having a friend go at each other. unfortunately, though the woman forgave me, I wasn't so forth coming. I was a little frosty towards them for the next week as we made our way through england. I had a great time and thanks to the wee scots-woman, I learnt how quickly people can judge you and make mountains out of mole hills. IF only one or two of those woman actually spoke to me or had a friendly go at me.. It would never have gotten nuts. Though it makes a good story and I still remember laughing my arse off with her at one of the pubs along the trip.. Cheers..

Deejay.