We had intended to get a group photo in front of bus but we gave that idea away because the wind was cold and it was about to rain. The enormous and delicious carrot cake was almost as a big a hit as the bus (thanks, Katy).
Test Drive
Well, we’ve had a few outings now in the new bus, and what a pleasure it is to drive compared to the old one. At Shakespear Park, all but a couple of the drivers had turns at seeing how it works.
The small hills were great for everyone to try out the automatic gearbox and the ES function. What is ES? It’s ‘easy start’, a neat function that means you don’t have to do a handbrake-start on hills.
On our first away trip to Ruapehu it was also good to have a quiet cab and be able to talk with, rather than yell at, the co-pilot. And even with seventeen of us on board, we hardly noticed the hills.
The CD/media player is great to cruise along with, and I’m looking forward to the air-conditioning this summer!
Hino and Custom Motorbodies are sorting out a few hiccups, and we’re still getting to grips with a few revised routines, but it looks as if we might be even happier with this bus than we were for so many years with the old one.
A Little Background on the Yellow Bus Colour
When bus #1 was purchased secondhand from ACTC, orange and black, plus the bootprint, was designed to go on a cream background. Sadly, we lost a lot when we put tried to put it onto a yellow background
Bus #2, in 1975, was a Ford cab and chassis, which only came in white/blue/red/yellow. We ended up with a yellow one, and had to make a tough call on whether to incur the cost of repainting the cab and chassis to NSTC cream, or bite the bullet and match the new body to the boring Ford yellow. The latter option prevailed after some vigorous discussion.
That bus body has seen a number of cab and chassis come and go over the last forty years.