While I painted these particular school buses at Hikurangi, north of Whangarei in Northland, they could have come from just about anywhere in New Zealand. Twice a day, our country roads are populated by motley fleets of student-laden coaches, mostly drawn from local contracting companies. Some of them are smart, some smoke like tramp steamers. These three old ladies had an elephantine look about them; I got the impression that they might be having a slanderous conversation!
Hikurangi was a coal mining town until 1971, it also had quite a substantial dairy factory serving the surrounding cattle farmers. Its intriguing area of limestone outcrops still distinguishes an otherwise modest town long ago by-passed by the main highway to the north.
© DON DONOVAN
donovan@ihug.co.nz
