Back with Shane and Chantal

Although I found the Turkish war series quite exciting, fortunately my time on Bernie's couch came to an end. While the weather remained modest, the frequency of burping increased and the quality of food decreased. She served me the grub similar to how she serves her animals: she slapped a monster portion on the plate and placed it on the table as she passed by, while I eagerly followed the series on the couch. Our conversations were limited to weather and work, but she seemed neither bothered nor pleased by my presence... so we lived alongside and ahead. Her Maori cousin Piri took me on a small bike tour. She showed me a beach nearby and took me, much more exciting for me, to the largest marae in the southern hemisphere, which she proudly told me about approximately 10 times. A marae is a kind of community center for the Maori people, used for different events ranging from birthdays to funerals. There was also a building next to the main building where children received cultural education. Piri hadn't been there in a while and was deeply moved by the old memories that suddenly popped up. On the last day at Big Mama's, with relatively stable weather, I took another little bike ride to a historic 660m long jetty that was built in the early 20th century for better loading of sheep, cattle, and other goods for export. So unfortunately, there was no surfing in Gisborne due to the weather, and my memories of this town will be shaped mainly by the countless Turkish war series I watched on Bernie's couch.

Then I visited Shane and Chantal again for a few more days. By now, the little puppies had opened their eyes and were much more agile and alert. I worked there for 3 days, and on one day we went on a fishing trip and on another day a small hunting trip. The work was physically demanding. I split a large load of wood, we installed a concrete basin at a water source, and laid some new water and power lines. But for the beautiful trips that Shane had planned for us, no work was too hard.

On the fishing trip, we took Luke with us, who was also the owner of the boat but had lost his driver's license due to a drunk driving accident and therefore relied on fishing friends with a license. The boat was a bit bigger than a normal nutshell and a bit challenging for my stomach on the rough sea that day. While Luke, as the captain, steered us to our fishing spots at the back of the boat, cheering loudly every time a wave carried Shane and me up in the front of the boat and then slammed us back down into the water shortly after, Shane struggled with pain from his back that was strained from construction work, and I struggled with my jolted peanut butter stomach. Since the boat didn't have a depth sounder, we relied on clusters of birds above the water or other fishing boats that were supposed to indicate fish. And the strategy and luck of the angler were with us. We caught snapper after snapper, and occasionally there were some mackerel, kahawai, and kingfish mixed in. The thrills with the kahawai and the kingfish were the best, but kingfish have a minimum size of 75cm (which none of our catches measured) and kahawai are not considered very good eating fish, so we released them again. I think New Zealanders have somewhat peculiar tastes. I still vividly remember the excellent flavor of smoked kahawai from my last stay in New Zealand, which Vampy and Säcken caught. They also reject eel, which has an incredibly high population in the local rivers and is considered an excellent food fish by us. But the pinnacle of rejection was the fish we used as bait: a really fat tuna... I don't know what different types of tuna exist, but it's incredible to use such a fish as bait. Well, in any case, we were all quite busy pulling in fish and changing bait. The challenging part was my ongoing nausea from the motion of the boat and the use of the right hand to reel in. New Zealanders not only drive on the other side of the road, but the reel on the fishing rod is also on the other side, and the brakes on bicycles are reversed compared to ours... fortunately, there is no bloody story for me to tell about that =). The absolute highlight on the high seas was Shane's little problem with digestion. He hadn't had regular bowel movements for a few days and suddenly felt the urge. With great routine, he changed his spot to the back of the boat, pulled down his pants, hung his behind over the edge of the boat, and let it go. Luke and I continued fishing, and Shane told us stories from his life while doing his business at sea. Wonderful =). The fish were filleted on Luke's father's property, who is a kiwi farmer, divided up, and served in the evening. Splendid!

The next evening, we picked up Luke and drove up an incredibly steep hill on his property to go hunting. Shane had two rifles with him. He handed one to me and the other to Luke. Luke certainly didn't have a license for a weapon, as he is not a reliable person due to his drunk trip, as it is called in legal language. And I had never held this rifle before, nor do I have a license for New Zealand. When I told the two of them that I didn't want to shoot, they looked at me with a slightly puzzled expression. I felt a bit prudish, and so we set off with our rifles slung over our shoulders, feeling like a gang of poachers. At this point, a brief foray into Shane's dark side, which I mentioned in the last text. Not only had his sons gone astray, but he himself had wandered off course for a time in his life. While working, he told me that he also used and became addicted to methylamphetamine, or crystal meth, for a long period of time. It was only through Chantal's help that he was able to break free from it. Crystal meth is a common drug in certain areas of Germany as well as in New Zealand, which ruins people's health as well as their social and economic well-being. Finally, he grew large quantities of marijuana on his property, sold it, and was caught by the police. He was lucky enough that they didn't find all of his supplies, so he didn't have to go to prison and was only sentenced to community service. He said that it had been so long since then that he had his license for his firearms back, but he is currently still doing community service... I had no reason to judge him. He was very respectful, loyal, considerate, and open towards me, so I trusted him. In any case, he led our hunting party and stopped from time to time to look for deer through his night vision device. He led us on paths that are certainly not found on any map, through forests and at night. Past roadside verges where there were incredibly many glowworms, and with mostly one headlamp in red light mode, which allowed us to roughly perceive obstacles on the paths. He repeatedly drew our attention to possums in the trees right next to us, which he spotted through the night vision device, and we were allowed to look at them as well. Then we approached a large clearing. Shane instructed us to turn off the lights and try to walk even quieter. And sure enough, we spotted a herd of deer. They were sitting and standing in the grass. Through the scope on one of the rifles, which also had a night vision mode, we could clearly see their outlines and determine the distance. They were 250m away from us. Too far to shoot. We watched them for a while and decided, relatively undecided, to get closer to them. The indecisiveness came from the late hour and the long way back. But halfway there, Shane said that it would be better to come back another day earlier. Also because if we had shot an animal, we would have had to carry it all the way back. And that could easily have been 150kg. I was torn inside once again. On the one hand, I was itching to finish this adventure, and on the other hand, I was also very glad not to disturb these beautiful animals in their nocturnal rest or even take one's life. So we made our way back. And almost at the car, we saw another herd running through the forest, but they were also too far away. I had never seen a fully grown deer in the wild in the forest back home before, and that evening I got to see several.

But that's how my time with Shane and Chantal ended, and I hitchhiked on to the Rotorua region, where I am now, supporting an extremely energetic dairy farmer in his daily work and exploring the volcanic area with its hot water pools and hot springs. On the way there, the rideshares were once again interesting. I drove with a police officer who was taking his youngest daughter shopping. Or an elderly couple with interesting conversations about economics, and an older lady who has been traveling her whole life and still doesn't have a permanent residence. But now it's time to go to bed because the cows want to be milked at 5:30am =).