miserable rain

I had the opportunity to experience my first earthquake here. At 5:30 in the morning, there was a sudden powerful jolt. Ignorantly, I thought the wind had slammed the door and went back to sleep. In the morning, everyone was talking about the earthquake. I'm not usually an anxious person, just some social anxieties that bother me, but I have a lot of respect and awe for natural forces. I'm also a bit curious about what awaits me on the Pacific Islands, where there are large volcanoes and heavy storms and rain can occur.

Even though the weather was very rainy in the Buddhist center in the last few days, it was still a beautiful farewell. On the last evening, Kara and Carey cooked for me and we sat together in a larger group, which made saying goodbye a bit harder for me.

Then I had a somewhat longer journey ahead of me and I was worried that I might not be able to hitchhike the 500km to Gisborne. I was grateful when Susi and Katharina adjusted their trips to fit my plans. Susi drove me to Coromandel in the morning, where she went shopping, and from there Katharina and Dug took me, as they had something to do in Hamilton. So I had completed the first 100km. And luck was on my side when a woman picked me up for about 45 minutes and then Shane and Chantal stopped and offered me a ride.

We immediately got along well and they offered me to spend the night at their place and show me some of their home and some pictures from the past. I agreed. The two had a lot to tell, and we had many similar interests. Chantal was South African, who came to New Zealand due to the high crime rate. She works as a yoga teacher and is very interested in Buddhism, and Shane is a Kiwi, an avid hunter and fisherman. They decided to move from the city to the countryside two years ago and bought a 25ha plot of land. They bought a used house in the city and had it transported to their new property by a company. For this, the wooden house had to be divided into 3 parts for transport, which was then reassembled on their new property. They now have sheep there, a large vegetable garden, and many different fruit trees. Shane also had a hall built for Chantal, where she teaches yoga.

Shane then introduced me to his dogs. There were 7 adults and 7 puppies. He has a very high attrition rate due to his hunting. In New Zealand, unlike in Germany, there are actually no restrictions on hunting animals. So all trapping is allowed, hunting from moving vehicles, and the chase, where dogs flush out the animals and chase them until they catch them. The hunter then comes and usually kills them with a throat cut, a pistol, or a shotgun. In my opinion, this is questionable from an animal welfare perspective, but different country, different customs. And when the wild animals are cornered, fights often break out, where dogs are killed by antlers or wild boar tusks.

New Zealand is apparently an Eldorado for hunters in general, as there are so few restrictions and a very high population of wild animals. Various species of wild animals were introduced during colonization and multiplied rapidly due to the absence of predators. So anyone who wants to can hunt here. It was only three years ago that the gun law was tightened after a terrorist attack in which a man killed 50 people in a mosque. So you don't need any special knowledge for hunting, but you have to get a gun license.

Shane is definitely very experienced and showed me an album with numerous wild boars and deer he had killed. He was also an fishing guide for a while and also showed me countless pictures of fish... a man with a pronounced hunting instinct.

Then he briefly told me about a dark side of his life. He had a wife with whom he has 2 sons. He is estranged from his wife and doesn't know where his sons are currently. Both have gone astray and are involved in criminal circles. His older son has been in prison for robbery for a long time, and his younger son is following in his footsteps and has been involved in several robberies. In New Zealand, mainly ram-raids are on the rise, where robbers forcefully enter a store by driving a car through the windows and then plunder it. Shane has had several conversations with his sons and has given up trying to help them.

In the evening, Shane served red deer sausages, which led to a cognitive dissonance for me as a semi-vegetarian... they tasted excellent. The next morning, he went fishing with friends and I stuck out my thumb again to get from Whakatane to Gisborne. And it didn't take long for a friendly elderly lady, also with an exciting life story, to take pity on me and give me a ride.

Now I'm in Gisborne with Bernie. She works for the government in the prevention field and is the boss of a 20-person team. She is half Maori and lives next to her brother and mother, where her grandmother and aunt also live. It's a huge family and it's a revolving door here. Suddenly, her cousin, who came back from Wellington and actually lives in Gisborne, stayed here for 2 days. Both didn't know how long she would stay. Incredible openness and trust that Bernie shows towards her fellow human beings. She's like a big mama. Funny, laid-back, caring, always snacking, and probably has a few extra pounds on her hips because of it. When I asked her if she had apples for muesli, she looked at me with wide eyes and repeated, "Apple?" and only showed me a can with an apple on it. The weather is unfortunately really bad. An unusually tropical cyclone is hitting the east coast of East New Zealand, putting everything in a small and wet state of emergency. So instead of surfing at the beach, I spend a lot of time next to Bernie on the couch, who also decided to work from home. We watch a Turkish historical war series with English subtitles on Netflix together. She got infected with war series after watching Last Kingdom and Vikings. Those are the only two series that I also watched. After watching them, she even had her DNA determined for $100 to find out if she has Scandinavian genes. And indeed, her DNA apparently identifies some Swedish genes. Well, here we sit next to each other, she occasionally on the phone and knitting, me occasionally on the PC, three crazy cats jumping around here, a dog vegetating in front of us, and an insect spray going off every few minutes (which I find absolutely disgusting), and so we endure here. It's also worth noting that she burps every 2 minutes or so and automatically says "Pardon me" in an affected singsong tone after each slightly louder one. It must be some kind of reflux disease, which I can only explain by her constant snacking on everything.

Oh yes, Bernie showed me her old house, where her daughter now lives. There are various citrus fruit trees there. So I ate a ugli fruit, a tangelo, and an orange. The orange and the tangelo were extremely tasty, and I can't understand why nobody takes them and Bernie prefers to eat her canned fruit.

Hopefully, the weather will get better soon so that I can explore the area a bit more.