The flight to New Zealand was pretty uneventful. What I remember most was the apprehension of getting out of the city. From the crowded O’Hare airport to LAX and being stuffed in the airplane inbetween, I couldn’t wait to touchdown in Auckland, get my backpack from baggage and set off. When I got off the plane I started going through a mental checklist of tasks that had to be done. Go to baggage, go through customs, exchange my currency, and find the right bus into the city for starters. All this was pretty easy and before I knew it I was headed into downtown Auckland. The feeling of freedom after getting off the plane and leaving the airport was short lived though. Downtown Auckland is full of cheap backpackers (what they call hostels here) banks, post offices, and everything else I would need for my first few days in a new country so heading there seemed like the logical thing to do. Stepping off the bus just made me feel like I had traded one big city for another though. It was extremely crowded and cramped, with construction everywhere. I reminded myself that I would probably only be here one night and then I could get out into the country.
First I headed to a backpackers that I had seen online and got a room with them. When I finally got the elevator to work with the keycard that the clueless clerk gave me to move about the building, I found my room, half the size of a college dorm with two sets of bunk beds and girls clothes everywhere. Not exactly ideal but I headed out into the city get my chores down so I wouldn’t have to spend more than one night here.
That afternoon I opened a bank account, got a debit card, called my first wwoofing host and agreed to meet him in the city after he got out of work the next day, and spent a lot of time walking around town and to the harbor. It was a pretty good, productive day all in all but one thing in peticular stands out. While walking down Queen Street downtown, I saw a familiar face duck into a small shop. I said to myself, “no way was that who I think it was”, but I had to have a close look. So of course I followed the guy. When I got to the doorway of the shop, he was walking out and I kind of stopped right in front of him prompting a surprised look on his face. And yes, it was him.
See, there’s this tv show on Animal planet called Whale Wars which follows an organization called Sea Shepherd. Every year, this organization sends out a few ships into the Southern ocean with the goal of stopping the Japanese whaling fleet from killing thousands of whales. It can be kind of a corny show but intrigues me a lot because it follows dozens of individuals who give up huge amounts of time and energy to take a ship thousands of miles from anywhere to physically stop other very determined people who think what they are doing is not just okay, but an important part of their culture. Anyway, last season Pete Bethune joined Sea Shepherd and brought his super lightweight speedboat to help with their campaign. Pete Bethune set a world record years ago in that boat to bring attention to alternative fuel sources and now was using it for the conservation of marine wildlife. Just a few weeks into the summer, his ship was rammed by a Japanese harpoon vessel, split in two, and sunk. It was pretty dramatic and a miracle that no one died. For the rest of the season, he plotted a way to get back at the Japanese. Weather it was a smart move on his part or not, Pete Bethune eventually drove a jet ski in the middle of the night to the harpoon vessel, boarded the moving ship in secret and revealed himself in the morning. He handed a bill to the captain and demanded to be paid and to answer for his warlike act against sea shepherd. I think the move was mostly done to generate publicity. The Japanese didn’t take kindly to having their ship boarded, arrested Bethune and held him captive for months while taking him back to Japan where he was in jail with murderers and rapists for a few more months after that. So on one side of the argument, what Pete Bethune did by firstly getting his multi-million dollar ship involved in such a heated relationship between the Japanese and Sea Shepherd, getting his ship rammed and destroyed, and then illegally boarding their ship as some kind of revenge getting him hauled off the japan and imprisoned for the better part of a year was really stupid of him. In the end, his two year prison sentence in Japan was suspended and he was sent home. On the other hand, if you watch him in the show, you can see he an extremely passionate and determined person. Some people may think he’s an idiot but but all this was pretty inspiring to me so when I saw Pete Bethune walk into that shop I had to follow him and shake his hand. He was pretty surprised but very humble and was very happy when I told him how inspiring of a character he is. We chatted for a while and he seemed genuinely interested in my trip, though most kiwis are just that polite. And then, because I had my cameral in my pocket, I shamelessly asked for a picture. Only afterwards did I realize that what I should have asked for was to work with him on whatever big campaign he was working on now, but that would have been a stretch. Still, I met this guy hours after arriving in New Zealand and while wandering aimlessly in its biggest city. Maybe I missed my big chance.
So the first day in New Zealand drew to a memorable end. I was ready for a long night of sleep and when I got to my room, the three girls I had to share it with didn’t look too happy to see me but I was exhausted.
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