-Chapter 19- Mac, Powen, the Kiwis and the French & Te Puke Holiday Park Part 3

The incredible happened only in our last week at Powen's: there were other workers! Three French people, a couple and their friend, had started working at Mac's Kiwifarm. By having more than just two workers, Powen seemed to thrive. As he shouted "How are you?" as he passed us that morning, he said without waiting for an answer: "Always good ya? Ha ha ha." We finally got different tasks that were even a bit fun, and time passed much faster.

If there were already communication problems between Powen and Celina and me, he was put to an even bigger test with the French woman. Our English is definitely not the best, but she made a lot of mistakes in very simple sentences, and Mac had to explain to her what a clock is. Once, Powen gave up trying to explain a task to her, instead he sent her to her friend.

In our last days, we got our dumbest job so far. The French woman asked me about "Pauen" before Powen and Mac showed her and me the new task in great detail. He demonstrated to us how to wrap the tapes, the strings (pronounced "Strriengs" by him) around the branches and kept tapping the trunk with his finger while saying "Notting, notting, notting." She nodded convincingly, laughed often, and said "Ahh!" at the right moments, but when we were left behind him, she whispered to me that she had no idea what we were supposed to do. When Powen explained this task to Celina, he accidentally hit himself in the eye with the rope, shouted "Holy shit!" and jumped off the ladder.

After that, I had to work with the French woman for a day. After two failed attempts to communicate with each other, we gave up. I tried to explain to her when we landed in New Zealand and how long we wanted to work there, but if she understood my questions, she didn't know how to answer them correctly and I couldn't make sense of her answers.

Since the day with the tractor, Powen had a special connection with Celina. One day he made her the strange offer not to return to Germany, but to stay in New Zealand forever and work on his kiwifarm. Unfortunately, she had to decline.

On our last day, Mac thanked us for our work and wished us luck. On November 8th, we also thanked Powen and said goodbye. From that day on, we panicked more than once when an Indian person approached us. ("That's him. It's really him!"). But we didn't meet him again. Powen has definitely become a legend for us in New Zealand.

The Te Puke Holiday Park- Part 3

The Te Puke Holiday Park was getting more and more crowded. One day off, we were sitting in the kitchen when a Colombian guy approached us in German because he had learned it in school. Two Asians, a German girl, two Lithuanians, a strange Czech guy, another German couple our age, and more Latin Americans also arrived. We also discovered that there was a pregnant Argentine woman.

By the third week at the Te Puke Holiday Park, we were definitely no longer the newcomers. We had an overview of all the residents and their hometowns, and we were not easily unsettled when it came to cooking either. Even though our dishes remained quite simple, we were able to improve a bit. My towels were lost for days until I had to pick them up at the reception because Donna thought they were hers, and on November 5th, Grizzlybear and Donna made a big fire in the campground. When someone asked for what occasion, she just replied "Guy Fawkes".

One afternoon, there were "Out of order. Use other showers" signs on the only three women's showers. It took us a long time to find someone who could show us a hidden but brand new bathhouse. Once, the caretaker came out of the beautiful women's shower wearing only a towel around his waist, smiled when he saw us, and quickly ran outside saying "Oops".

One morning, when we were about to go to work as usual, the battery was dead again. Celina panicked and asked one of the last backpackers for help, who was having breakfast. Since we couldn't drive to work for more than 15 minutes at that time, we feared the whole day that we wouldn't be able to leave again in the evening. And that's exactly what happened. Powen's Indian friend (the one who loved to sing passionately) had to help us after work, so Powen had to drive behind us all the way to Te Puke. (At that time, we didn't dare to drive faster than 80 km/h). The next morning, the German guy had to give us a jumpstart, we went to the workshop, and some loose part of our battery was tightened. After that, we drove on the Maketu Road for an hour and then we were spared from jumpstarts for a while.

Exactly three weeks later, we checked out of the Te Puke Holiday Park. Looking back, those were the best weeks of our time in New Zealand, and somehow Te Puke was the only place where we felt a bit at home. After the crazy welcome and our first impression of Te Puke, we never thought that we would be sad to leave this place.

-> To be continued