No Gun Hunting

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Back in my traveling days, I was lucky enough to spend some time in New Zealand. It was an era where you could actually get around the country by hitchhiking, without fear of ending up as fodder for a horror film.

My buddy Murray and I were heading south to Auckland to meet up with our friend Cliff. We were at a crossroads when a small car slowed down to pick us up. It was a Government of New Zealand vehicle and the driver looked us over, measuring and weighing the options, while Mur and I tried to look as innocent and trustworthy as possible.

Quit laughing - we could pull it off back then.

The driver bought our act, er, believed that we were safe and pulled over to pick us up. One of the first things he said to us was "This is a federal government car and I'm not supposed to pick up hitchhikers, so you have to be ready to duck if we pass by any other government cars, okay?"

The car was a little subcompact and we had two large backpacks and were a head taller than the driver. Mur and I looked at each other, then turned to the driver and said "Sure, not a problem!"

We piled into the car and set off. The driver was a talkative little fellow that loved taking the back roads everywhere. He talked a mile-a-minute and knew a ton of the history of every road we traveled on.

One of the problems with this, was he talked a lot with his hands. Maybe he was an Italian Kiwi or a French Kiwi, I don't know, but he continually let the car drive itself for a few hundred meters before grabbing the wheel and keeping us on the highway.

As we were heading up a hill, doing 100 km/hr or so, we came upon a couple of sheep that were munching grass on the shoulder. Not an unusual sight, seeing as there are about 400 sheep to every New Zealander. All of a sudden, our driver yells at Murray, "Why didn't you open your door?"

Mur literally jumped in his seat, his seatbelt the only thing keeping his head from banging the roof. "Umm, what?" he said. "If you had opened your door at the right time, we could have bagged one of those sheep! We just pop it into the boot and my butcher friend would take care of the rest and we could have had a lamb roast for dinner! Next time you see a lamb on the side of the road, flip your door open!"

What could Mur say? "Okay, no problem! I'll get the next one!"

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That settled, we drove for another few minutes and learned more about the countryside. All of a sudden, the driver slams on the brakes and jumps out of the car and races across the road and up a little hill.

At this point, Murray and I are trying to figure out how to either a) drive a right-hand drive car so we could keep going, or b) find another ride on a back road where we haven't seen another car for 30 minutes, all the while keeping an eye on our driver who was stalking a wild turkey up a hill.

Before we could come up with a good plan, our driver came back to the car, sans turkey. "Damn birds," he muttered, "They're smart ones. If I could have caught it, we'd throw it in the boot and my butcher friend could fix it up and we'd have a turkey roast for dinner!"

We finally made it back to the main highway and our driver dropped us at a roadside café and took off with a wave. Apart from seeing some incredible scenery, Murray and I both learned how to hunt sheep and wild turkeys with nothing but a subcompact car.

All we had to do is find a butcher friend…