It Begins With ‘P’ at the ‘Poo Hotel
I had seen Les’ face plastered all over the Kiwi Experience brochures. He is 84 years old, has a white scraggly beard, and is always being kissed on the cheek by some face-painted twenty-something girl or he is flipping rump steaks on a grill. We kept hearing about the West Coast icon, “Good Ole Les,” all the way down to Lake Mahinapua. I knew that there is always a costume contest at the Lake Mahinapua Hotel which is a stop on the Kiwi Experience trip. We were told by our driver that the theme was to be “Anything that starts with the letter ‘P'”. I thought for a bit and came up with either Pinocchio or Peter Pan. We stoped in Greymouth to get the gear to make our costumes for the party later that evening. I went into a two-dollar store and wasn’t able to find anything except some stuff for wrapping gifts and some cheap cowboy, pirate, and princess accessories (which I knew a bunch of people would snatch up). So I opted for the wrapping paper and bows, thinking that I would be a “pretty present.” We loaded back into the bus and squirmed down the narrow, cliff-hugging road of the west coast and made it down to the famous Hotel and pub.
When we pulled in, Les slowly climbed onto the bus to welcome us. He kept calling our driver Philipa “Pamela” over and over again. Each time she would just shrug from behind him or extend her arms like she’s saying “that’s me!”. It was quite hilarious. He gives the same speech to each of the Kiwi Experience bus groups, telling us what is for dinner and some information about staying at the Hotel. We unloaded all of our stuff and I started to make my costume since it was going to take some work. I had to cut a ton of gold ribbon at different lengths to make a wig of sorts and attached all of the ends to a big gold bow. I cut a dress out of wrapping paper and had to tape the heck out of it. I was in a room with a young Swedish couple and Martin, the guy, had to tape the paper on me, thereby rendering me unable to sit, move my arms, or go to the bathroom while in the costume. We all gathered in the pub, which had a fireplace blazing and tons of stuff plastered all over the walls and ceiling. The entire ceiling was filled with people’s hats and other bizarre head-coverings. We took lots of pictures of everyone and then we started to play some games like charades. I was fine until we played a game where you had to pass a ball over your head. I passed the ball about two times and on the second time my wrapping paper dress ripped completely across the front and fell off. We all had a pretty good laugh about it and I was glad to be out of the thing because I couldn’t move!
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