London: Waitangi day pub Crawl Sat 3rd Feb

Has anyone done this? Looks pretty crazy ay. Its going to be a big couple of Saturdays with the Aussie day monopoly pub crawl the weekend before. I heard there is something like 5000 people who join in.

Check out youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqanmTarrEU
and the website http://www.waitangidaylondon.com/

so who is doing it this year? and any tips from previous years?

the australia day one is a pathetic attempt to match the awesomeness of the traditional waitangi day pub crawl.

have done the last two, and they've been completely crazy, will definitely be at this year's.

Best bet is to start at paddington, aim to get there by 11. Then head round towards Westminster, skipping stops as you need to to get there by 4pm for the big haka (get there early if you want to see anything).

my favourite stops are south ken (which always seems to be crazy, I think because everyones had quite a few by then), and Victoria, where I haven't been into the "official" pub, but the backup is pretty cool.

Last year the train we were on at victoria had it's door broken, it was *just* before 4pm, the entire train was rammed full of kiwis, the cops were called in, they had to shut down the station, then everyone ran like fuck to get to the westminster just in time.... crazy...

got to do this once in your London stay (even if you're not a kiwi )

I've been to the last 2 as well. The incident with the tube jamming was wierd. There were litterally hundreds of kiwis running down Victoria street towards Westminster just before 4 (after they closed down victoria tube station).

Seriously, there were some very worried looking people coming out of buildings to see crowds of people running down the road (they might have even thought of a terrorist attack that soon after 7/7, well until the first guy belched or laughed or something).

Will definitely be at this year's. Funniest quote from last year "dude, I think I'm going to hell! I just pissed on westminster abbey!"

Its heaps of fun- certainly for the dedicated though!

Has anyone ever done the whole thing or is it truly impossible

Won't be here this year, but have done the last 3 of them. As others have said, definitely worth doing.

do you have that video of when the train broke down?

haha cool Im looking forward to it ay should be an interesting day

Hmm yeah might be at work. Will look tomorrow

Managed to do one while in London, had a great day, although cant remember anything after the haka, good times

yeah, that's traditional

It was quite random how we all ended up meeting in the same pub in Westminster. Bizarrely enough my sister was jammed in at the other end of the same pub but we had no idea she was there, far too crowded to get through.

I ended up "liberating" four huge wine glasses from that Witherspoons in Tower Hill.

The Waitangi pub crawl is my favourite day out in London! That's why I started the site mentioned (http://www.waitangidaylondon.com). It's new this year and I'm really keen to get a lot more photos and stories to add to the site. So please get in touch after the big day with anything you'd like to contribute and I'll be sure to stick it up for all to see! Email me photos/stories/links to YouTube videos at waitangidaylondon@yahoo.com

See ya out there, don't forget to dress up!!!

Kirsty

for any of you who can still face the site of a drink after the pub crawl, we are hosting a waitangi day event at the big chill house on tuesday 6th.

jayson norris is playing live; nick lloyd, ajax and guests will be djing; the london maori club, ngati ranana, will be performing at 8pm; the kitchen will be serving up kiwi style treats and best of all it is free!

more info here:
www.spacific.net
www.bighcill.net/house.html
www.jaysonnorris.com

^^^ ha yeah my mate txt me about that last night ill be there, looks like good times. And I see they have Sydneys local boy Ajax playing

this ajax is from marsterton - but don't hold that against him!

we're all meeting up at the old swan by notting hill gate at 11am and heading on from there

Ive been told that it gets way packed in the pubs and that taking a backpack full of your own booze is the best bet. Any advice on how to attack this? cause like no-one wants to be stuck with an empty bag at the end of the day...

if the pubs are too full, just go to an offy and wait outside... or go to another nearby pub...

you'll probably only get into 1 - 2 pubs before westminster... plus a few roadies = pretty pissed by 4pm

also, starting early, slightly further along from paddington (where most people start) means you can have a couple of preliminaries while you wait for your mates to arrive

What a full on day. And didnt London turn on the weather for it! Very fun and very messy. I somehow ended up at the Redback after, which was interesting.

oh shit i cant wait to hit london

OMG, this was madness!! I didn't go on the actual pub crawl, just met up with friends in the square at the end. fec*kin chaos, a trail of destruction. I did see one crazy drunk guy jumping off a lamppost, hate to think what happened when he hit the ground, I was too far away to see it. It has got too big now, needs more control/organisation when everyone meets up at the end.

yeah it is crazy... the haka at westminster is actually not my favourite part.. (because you have to get there ultra early to see anything), but I just like the "journey" to get there in time...

Some of the stops along the way are pretty cool... South Kensington is always lots of fun... am glad it's only once a year tho, since it usually turns into a marathon drinking session :/

I managed to catch the end of it.. although it was a bit of mission as i had just flown in from Geneva.

yo mate, how's london treating ya?

Was there a Haka this year? I didn't see or hear anything! Everyone just sort of drifted off at about 4:15...