The Ritchies bus was heading to Port Chalmers to pick up cruise ship passengers on Saturday morning when its clutch failed and it came to an unscheduled stop.
The driver managed to coast the vehicle off State Highway 88 and towards a nearby bus stop, near the bottom of Jessie St, , but came up just short.
The bus was left partially blocking the road, although cars were able to make their way around it.
Yesterday, it remained marooned in Maia, although Ritchies area manager Peter Varrie said it was due to be towed later in the day.
The incident was "just one of those unfortunate mechanical failures", he said.
"We managed to get him [the driver] out of there and into another bus and he still made it on time to pick up the tourists and do his tour."
