Hitchhiking to Gisborne!

Today I had to say goodbye again - I really liked Whakatane, the White Island tour was of course the highlight. It was also very pleasant to live with my host.

So: pack everything back into my backpack and hope it fits somehow. I definitely need to buy a new piece of luggage because I simply don't want to live with so little space all the time. However, I'm still considering whether to get another backpack or a suitcase...
Actually, it doesn't really matter.
What's much more exciting is what happened next: instead of boringly traveling by bus, I decided to hitchhike. The whole 180km from Whakatane to Gisborne, my longest distance so far. But basically, you follow a single highway for most of the way, so there aren't many options.
I even made a nice sign, then dragged myself with all my luggage to the outskirts of town (I was sweating buckets!) and then: thumb out, sign up and smile!
After about 10 minutes - the first success. Two ladies picked me up in their car and took me to Ohope, where they had a meeting (don't ask me how you can have a meeting in such a small place).

And then the big jackpot: a nice older lady was on her way to Gisborne and picked me up! How lucky can you get?
We had a very good car ride. Both of us talked almost non-stop for the 2.5 hours; by now I like this kind of small talk.
I also got a lot of interesting and pretty weird information from her, about farm work, sheep shearing, and the sock size of rugby players. Do you understand what I mean?
By the way, she also showed me the landscape. Part of the route led through a valley, with lots of curves and ascents. I found the route exciting, especially in terms of the landscape, but my driver wasn't so enthusiastic.
This route is famous-infamous, especially for rockfalls and floods. And because it's the only good connection to Gisborne, there's always utter chaos when the road has to be closed.
We reached Gisborne at lunchtime. By chance, my driver had to go to the same street. Perfect.
When I arrived at the house, I took a shower first. I was so sweaty because the car didn't have air conditioning. It's better for the environment, but worse for my body odor...
I've also been very lucky with Couchsurfing: I have my own room, the bathroom is clean, and I have WiFi. We also go shopping together and my host insists on paying for everything. Well, if he insists?

In the afternoon, I went to Gisborne. It took me about an hour to get to the center and first, as always, I walked to the Visitor Centre. Loaded with brochures, I then did a large part of the city tour to see as much as possible on this afternoon.
The city is not incredibly spectacular, but still nice to look at. The three rivers that first flow into each other and then into the sea are distinctive. Oh yes, there's also the beach, of course. But I didn't have a very good view, hopefully I'll have a better chance of taking nice pictures tomorrow.
Quite interesting was an art project that took place in Gisborne: 20 artists were asked to create graffiti on certain topics related to nature conservation, the sea, and environmental pollution. Beautiful pictures have been distributed throughout the city center.
At some point my feet started to hurt quite a bit (flip-flops are not really suitable for 4 hours of walking) so I made my way home, another hour at least.

In the evening, it went typical: I cooked dinner, then we sat together and talked. That's how we created the plan for tomorrow, there's a lot to do and experience! Thank goodness my host is lending me a bike again, well, actually a mountain bike. Sigh...
I'm sorry if the last few lines were written somewhat confusingly. For some reason, I'm pretty exhausted tonight, so I'm going to bed early.