To come
right to the point of the headline: Fishing up at the stream on top of lake
Tekapo it seems that while crossing one of these electric fences, I slammed my
watertight Patagonia backpack to hard on the ground. Because some days later I
realized that my 10-22 Canon EF-S does everything but focus and looking closely
I discovered that there was more or less some kind of moving gap in the lens between
the focus and the zoom unit. Ok something was broken. And this lens is not the
built to be used as a priest as it is the legendary 70-200 2,8 USM IS II (btw.
the most sexiest lens I own currently, it even made sharp pictures after a
Canon service, but now it is one of my sharpest lenses). Shoot! After
considering the pros and cons of a wide angle not working and having one, I
considered to order a new one. I found one source that offers it even cheaper
than at home. Thinking about an address to be delivered was the more complex
part. As we have no resident address down around Queenstown and the only person
we know is most of the time on the rivers to guide. The only constant and definitely
to be visited address was Gantleys restaurant (one of the best restaurants
in NZ). I called them and babbled something like “we know nothing, but one
thing is for sure, we will have dinner one night at your restaurant – may I use
your address as my post box?” The helpful answer was “yes!” Thus I ordered and
hope for the fresh 10-22 to arrive in time for the dinner.
Why did I
start that? At the Wild Earth we did not just buy one of the best bottles we
had in the last two weeks, but we had two of the highest priced pieces of cake we ever had: 8 NZ$ for a plane piece of lemon cake each. No, there was no happy
ending included. The cake was good, but the similar cake in Methven was better.
At the time
of writing, sitting in a nice cottage on the north end of Lake Wakatipu after a
fine dinner with some – again – outstanding beef filet, beans, mashed potatoes
and salad, I am just enjoying the last sips of a Church Road Merlot CabSauv
2010. Besides the Wild Earth Pinot this gets four out of five flies of a to be
created section of that blog on wine evaluation. Sorry, have to mention the
money topic again. Hint for the traveler: buy your wine in the supermarket
(wineries charge most of the times more) and look out for the significant reductions. The
wine mentioned was reduced by around 50%.
As
mentioned before we had to make arrangements for the stream we wanted to make
our attendance. But guide Bruce Leitch wanted to go there the second half of the
week with a client. So we changed plans and decided to drive up to the Nevis. I
mention that river because I really can not recommend to fish that river unless
you are willing to invest several days or years in that river. Fish are few or small later in the season. Besides that it is a remote high valley with a special touch. The valley is threatened by a crazy dam project to be planed! Sometimes humans are really stupid. The whole
valley and especially the north exit of it is real 4WD country. Did we survive
that with the glued tier?