Fishing on the North Island

Classes here at Massey have begun. The faculty and staff have been great. They have warmly welcomed me as a new colleague. I am both appreciative and humbled by the opportunity to work with these outstanding individuals for the next four months.

We've settled in the new digs (housing) at 6/160 Ruahine Avenue. Maddy has begun school in Level 7 at Ross Intermediate. She is in a laptop classroom where she has her own Apple computer for the term. Look for a message to come your way from Maddy as she is now a proficient user of Google Docs and Gmail.

My round-trip bike ride from home to Massey and back is around 20km. Most of it is follows the Manawatu River trail system. The weather has been outstanding, in fact I'm not sure we've seen rain since arriving in Palmerston North. Everyday is similar: sunny and blue skies with highs in the upper 70s or low 80s. It's a wow place right now.

I've made a new friend in Greig Cousins, who allowed me a day of fishing with him on one of the local rivers. It was spectacular! Evidence is in the photos. Thanks Greig!

The Eagle has Landed

Our last days on the South Island (for now) were spent in the town of Picton, the gateway to the North Island. The first half of the drive from Kaikoura follows the shoreline of the Pacific. It closely followed the beaches and cliffs much like our Highway 101 in the States. The second part of the drive was through vineyards and more mountains. This is the country which supplies the world famous wines of New Zealand. We enjoyed a bottle from the Montana Winery found near Blenheim.

We spent the night in Picton and boarded the ferry for the North Island the next evening following Super Bowl Monday (International Dateline). Of the pubs found in this transportation hub, only one owner was astute enough in his entrepreneurial abilities to plan a Super Bowl party. I visited several pubs before finding his establishment, aptly named The Flying Haggis. When I walked in a day earlier to ask if they’d be showing the game, the local group of gentlemen in biker chaps verbally indicated to me how surprised they were that someone would actually watch that “match”. The nice lady tending bar was unsure if they’d televise it at the Haggis, but luckily for all, there was a hand written advertisement on a piece of notebook paper taped to the bottom of the television behind the bar. It stated “Super Bowl Monday Noon”. The place filled up on Monday with mostly Americans, the game was great, the owner was great, and we had a wonderful time.

The night before, I was able to feed the fishing addiction (surprised?) at a spring creek near Blenheim. This spring creek was around 20’ wide and ran 10’ deep everywhere. I was lucky enough to sight several LARGE brown trout despite fishing at dusk. This is a one-cast show. In other words, a person needs to get it right on the first cast or move on as these trout will not consider a second offering. My first cast to the biggest brown trout I’ve seen was perfect. The size 14 royal wulff floated downstream, followed by the 4x tippet, 10’ leader, and lastly the willow-colored fly line. The big brown’s nose came out of the water. He grabbed the fly. I waited patiently for an extra full second before setting the hook. Textbook-like, he was cleanly hooked. Unfortunately for me, a trout of this size will not tolerate any initial resistance even with the 4x tippet. He took one quick run and broke me off. Game over…

Following a great game between the Raven and Niners, we jumped on the ferry to Wellington. The waters of the Cook Strait were calm and we were treated to a series of rainstorms and rainbows along the way – beautiful.

The next afternoon we arrived in Palmerston North to begin school and work. Our first task for the week is to secure some housing.

1.6 x 10^3 kilometers, 1 x 10^12 Sandflies, 3 Bags of Chips, & the Graveyard

After leaving Christchurch, we began a 1000 mile, one week loop South through Canterbury, Fjiordlands, Southland, Otago, and North to Kaikoura. We camped along the turquoise waters of Lake Tekapo. Saw the giants, Mount Cook (13,000 ft) and Mount Tasman. Fed the fish at the salmon farms located in the canals near Lake Putaki. We swam in the crystal clear waters of Lake Wanaka. We made the journey around Lake Wakatipu to hike 9km staying in a wilderness hut along a tremendous trout river. We stayed at Simon Chu’s legendary trout cottage along the Oreiti River in Lumsden near the self-proclaimed Brown Trout Capital of the world – Gore NZ.

Following a bit of a wet summer in the South, the sandfly population has prospered. For those of us from the Northern Hemisphere well-versed in mosquito areas, sandflies are smaller, close in size to the head of a finish nail, but very efficient in their ability to irritate the human being. The distinguishing characteristic of all teeth might be the most accurate descriptor one can provide.

Despite the trillion or so insects covering my sorry body while Linda and Maddy retreated to the hut, I did find some amazing fishing one evening on this wilderness river. During a sparse caddis hatch, I landed one rainbow trout around 20”. It was a decent fish, but it was also the smallest fish of the night. The next two were hovering over the 5 pound mark (yes dry flies) along with two much larger fish who broke my leader following an extensive fight. One large brown was crafty enough to borough himself under a sharp rock while using it as a tool to fray and break the leader.

The walk into the hut was advertised at 2.5-3 hours of hiking. Our party made it in 4.5 hours. I was happy there was not a mutiny, but as usual, the girls handled it great. Yeah - sorry to report there have been other backpacking experiences with me where they’ve been asked to overachieve.

The fishing cottage in Lumsden was exotic in its décor. On the walls were fishing memorabilia from all over the world. It was great to see a photo of our friends Joel and Deb Thompson on the fireplace and a poster from the movie a “River Runs through It”. Additionally, a calendar from January 1990 was prominently displayed in the kitchen. The top pane was a picture of George Grant along with a narrative of his contributions to fly fishing through his work on Montana’s Big Hole River.

As we rounded our loop North at Dunedin, we stopped at the St Clare’s beach where a sign prominently reminded us that we were much closer to the South Pole than to our home in North America. Somewhere along the trip we crossed the 45th parallel for the Southern Hemisphere.

After a quick stop to see our friends Tony and Helen in Christchurch, we headed to Kaikoura where after a night’s camping we hooked up with Dave Lyons for a day of family surfing. Dave leads surf coaching classes, is a member of the NZ surf team, supports a family with three kids, and has three or four jobs. Dave was great and we had an awesome time as all three of us were able to stand up on the board and surf in the beautiful clear waters of the South Pacific! Dave sent us home with a couple pounds of butterfish that he had speared while snorkeling earlier in the day. It was delicious. And one more thing, as we entered the road to the beach, we passed a graveyard, thus the name of the surfing beach - the boneyard.