Waitangi Pub Crawl

The following was written by my sister and it's an account of the Waitangi Day celebrations in London which we were both part of.

The Waitangi Day pub crawl round the Circle Line of London’s Underground is not a time to be sexy. It is not a time to be cool, or smartly dressed. Or sober. No, the Waitangi London pub crawl is a time to be loud and proud to be Kiwi, and not afraid to flaunt an inflatable sheep to prove it.

Every year on the Saturday closest to Waitangi Day, about eight thousand London-based Kiwis head out with NZ flags, All Blacks jerseys, and a huge amount of beer-fuelled national pride for a pub crawl. The aim is to get from Paddington at ten a.m. to Westminster in time for the haka at four p.m. As with any organised drinking event, certain rules apply. You must take only Circle Line trains – on stations where Circle and District Line trains run on the same tracks, all District Line trains are greeted with a great chorus of booing, and any Kiwi unwise enough to get aboard is roundly abused. Once on the train, you must neither sit down nor hang on to anything for support. Inevitably, as you get further along the pub crawl and less steady on your feet, the challenge of remaining upright aboard a swaying tube becomes greater and greater, but it’s all part of the fun. You must have at least one beer at the designated pub at each tube stop (half-pints are acceptable for females). You must be polite to all non-pub-crawling members of the public, taking especial care not to frighten small children and little old ladies. Dressing up is strongly encouraged – anything Kiwi-themed, anything which will make you recognisable as a New Zealander, is all good. You must join in with any wiata you hear, even if only the chorus, and, above all, you must make it to Parliament Square at Westminster in time for the haka.

By the time I showed up on Saturday 3 February 2007, I’d already broken one of the rules – having slept in, I’d missed the ten a.m. kickoff at Paddington, and so instead went straight to South Kensington, five stops on, to catch up with some mates. The atmosphere at the tube station was electric: the platform was jam-packed with Kiwis, and it looked like the bulk of the pub crawl had already had their South Kensington pint, and were heading onto Sloane Square. I couldn’t help grinning.

The costumes were incredible; a million different variations on the theme of silver-fern-on-black, creative face-painting, NZ in-joke t-shirts (“You’re not in Guatemala now, Doctor Ropata”) and Lord of the Rings masks abounded. One girl wore a tshirt which sported the recipe for pavlova. It made my own effort of pounamu necklace, Otago Uni hoodie and NZ flag beanie look downright boring. Nothing loath, I made my way upstairs to find the designated South Kensington pub. It wasn’t hard – even if there hadn’t’ve been a massed crowd of Kiwis stretching from the pub to the tube station, the staff of the London Underground had helpfully written official signs saying “Kiwis this way, turn right at the lights for the Zetland Arms”.

There can be no doubt that this relaxed and helpful attitude on the part of officialdom greatly helps to make the Waitangi London pub crawl the massive success it continues to be. I saw examples of it time and again. When I eventually managed to thread my way through the crowd to the Zetland Arms, there were three police vans on site. Dozens of officers of London’s Metropolitan Police – one of the most capable and hard-nosed forces in the world – were on hand to make sure nothing went awry. Usually, when drunken people and police mix, the result is not happy. But here was all smiles. Boozed and cheerful Kiwis were swapping hats with the English cops and throwing an arm round their shoulders for photographs. Beer was solicitously offered, and regretfully declined. It made me genuinely proud to see the good reputation we’ve managed to earn ourselves overseas. After the police had moved on to shepherd the crowds at the next stop, I was accosted by a worried-looking Eastern European man, wanting to know what was going on. As soon as he heard, he began to beam. “New Zealand! Yes, is best country, so friendly. Ah, New Zealand! Excellent!”

So I hung out outside the Zetland Arms with a pint of Kronenberg in a plastic cup. No glass here – the Zetland have hosted the Waitangi pub crawl before and they know the score. My mates hadn’t turned up yet, but that didn’t matter, because when you’re half way across the world, the simple fact of your shared New-Zealand-ness is enough to make you heaps of new friends. One woman saw my Otago hoodie and demanded to know when I’d studied there. Ninety-nine til oh-two, I told her. “Oh! So young!”, came the reply. “Look at your skin. Such young skin!” Turns out I’m only three years younger than she is, and we spent a happy time swapping tales of Dunedin life.

Eventually I had a call from my mates saying they’d accidentally overshot the mark and gone straight from Gloucester Road to Victoria, so I got myself another beer and headed back to the tube. Normally, drinking from an open vessel on the street (and on public transport) is frowned upon, especially during the day, but what the hell – it’s Waitangi. I got chatting to some more Kiwis on the tube, and was reminded about the no-hands rule; so I stood there swaying, beer in one hand and camera in the other, while I tried to stay upright. All was well until the train slowed for the next station – one person tripped, and that meant that beer and pub crawlers and kiwiana went flying everywhere, in a tangle of limbs, shouts and foam. The three small children who were travelling with their father looked at us in silent admiration: we were behaving like clowns, and yet no one was telling us off! The little girl smiled at me, and I gave her the thumbs up before seeing a sign saying ‘Victoria’ and lurching off the train.

Having followed another of Transport for London’s helpful signs (“Kiwis this way!”), I made it up to street level and was treated to another Kiwi panorama. The Duke of York was obviously full, and so revellers had spilled out onto the street outside – and onto the street opposite, and the street round the corner, and the street next to that, until the entire view was just pub-crawlers, drinking and laughing as far as the eye could see. Suddenly I lurched forward as somebody squealed and hugged me from behind, beer still in their hand. My mates had come looking for me, and, by some miracle, had managed to pick me out amongst the throng. Reunited now, we decided to flag the Duke of York and ease on down the road towards Westminster, where the haka was soon due to start.

Parliament Square was completely thronged. It was a crazy sensation, standing so close to such iconic London buildings – Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament – and yet being completely surrounded by New Zealanders, with New Zealand clothes and New Zealand accents. It is a tribute to the Waitangi pub crawl’s good reputation that the police made no fuss about us being there: normally, it is illegal to gather or protest that close to Parliament without a special permit. It was at Westminster, too, that I managed to fulfil my day-long ambition and swap hats with a London cop for a photo. He’d obviously spent the whole day humouring drunken Kiwis, but despite that – or perhaps because of it – he still had a smile on his face.

But then I heard the roar, and it was time to hurry closer: the haka was starting. The climax of the Waitangi London pub crawl comes at four p.m., when the guys take their shirts off and gather to perform the iconic All Blacks’ haka. I was too far away to see it – you had to’ve been there really early to get a spot that good – but that didn’t matter. I could hear the familiar phrases being shouted out by hundreds of Kiwi men, and I could feel the joy and pride and rollicking good humour which swept through the crowd of ex-pat thousands.

There are many different places you can celebrate Waitangi Day, but London, away from the politics and the protests, has to be one of the best. It is an unambiguously good-vibe day. On the train home, I couldn’t help remembering the line of cops outside the Zetland Arms. “Move along, folks, move along”, one of the police officers was saying; and we would’ve taken him seriously, too, if he hadn’t been trying so hard not to laugh. A pub-crawler paused to stare at the officer intently, leaning towards him, and put a hand on his shoulder. “Mate”, the kiwi said earnestly. “Maiyte. Would ya like a beer?”'