The last days on SI NZ

The family was happy to see me again – at least I had that kind of impression.

We had another day in Nelson before we had to move onwards further north. A family day was what we all needed. So we went to the west to go over to the Golden Bay. All the way over this winding mountain road I thought to myself: strange I know that street. It took a while till I realized that we went to a river “behind the mountain” (Takaka pass) back at our very first river to NZ in 2009. This time we continued towards Takaka, a small eco-touched tourist village with an alternative boutique stile spin. You got it? 

It was semi-eco. It started off with a lady at DOC in Takaka I asked about possible Didymo in a certain river (as the main river had) and any restrictions related, but she had absolutely no clue about it. Then there was a lady outside of DOC protesting and collecting supporters against the budget cut of DOC of about 5 million NZ$. But she could not answer the question what the total budget of DOC was at all, so if 5 million might be percent wise much less than other organizations where facing or if it was substantial at all or could be saved by using less paper. And finally and third there was a lady which looked very strange at us as we asked here to heat the wrap we choose for lunch for 10 seconds in the microwave (the wrap was chilled). She replied “You can’t heat lettuce!” I was done with that village, let’s get out of here before I get mad. 

We continued towards the Pupu springs. A significant spring feeding a spring creek with very pure and clear water. One of the clearest springs in the whole southern hemisphere.

Later on our ways separated, Ines and Tobias went for the Pohara Beach and I went to fish that spring creek. My story is told quickly: perfectly looking creek, difficult access (farmers sending you somewhere upstream to walk all the way downstream over paddocks), only one fish spotted, very slippery ground that made me not just to dip but literally to swim with the rod in my hand. Thanks again to the watertight patagonia back pack. I finished this creek without a single fish-contact.

In the meantime Ines and Tobias did spend a few hours on the sandy beach. After a while the wind increased and they headed for shelter at the local playground and the local cafes. I quit my excursion rather early so it took some local investigation and just a short search to find them hiding in a cafe.

That was Golden Bay – we went back over the hill to our nice apartment in Nelson.

Some days ago we had the idea to spend a few days over in Golden Bay. But it turned out that decent cottages where unavailable or unattractive due to unacceptable rental conditions (such as no linen or change of rental fee). And after these hours over there we came to the conclusion that it was not the worst to stay in Nelson. Besides that I can only recommend to do some hiking or better freedom sea kayaking in the Abel Tasman NP. We did the last two years ago.

We finally had to leave Nelson. After ten days. All of us where a little bit sad. We went over to Picton / Waikawa Bay towards a huge cottage we booked to celebrate Tobias first birthday the next day - the perfect place for a family (huge living room, balcony, kitchen, lots of rooms and space).  But before that we headed towards Blenheim. One of the most important winery areas of SI. On the bottle this area is called Marlborough. 

Three wineries had the pleasure to be visited by us: Wairau (decent), Hans Herzog (of whom we bought a 2003 red CabSauv something – to the date of writing not yet drunk. Modern Swiss origin, highly quality oriented) and Fromm (where the wine did not meet our taste but the traditional preparation of the mash was happening – barefoot kicking of the crapes). 

Tobias first birthday was approaching (13^th of April). Sure he did not yet realize what happened but his parents prepared a cake with candles (that made him frighten) and some presents including a very typical NZ toy: a Buzzy Bee. A Buzzy Bee is a wooden bee to drag behind, that turns its wings and makes a buzzing sound. He loved it and immediately gave it a good play on the large balcony. An his parents loved that he loved and them loved him because of love. Got it? Besides that he got his first shoes and a book. 

The afternoon I wanted to catch the very last trout of SI. I knew about a creek close to Blenheim in the middle of the wineries. Access with all these creeks in urban area is a little bit limited most of the time. I found some access from a bridge walking upstream. I started as usual, trying to get in the water, I got some water in my waders as this was one of the creeks that was bathtub shaped, thus 1,5meters in depth right next to the bank. Walking the creek upstream through the vine and the apple trees I spotted a view fish in that typical weedy spring creek. If memory does not cheat I most likely caught the last fish of SI in that creek. A rainbow around 2-3lbs. nothing of particular interest – just the last fish on SI (But as usual there are supposed to be much bigger fish in that creek - typical for spring creeks - the large trouts only come out to feed late or early). That is what fascinates me about guides memorizing fish, fly and circumstances. As stated I have problems to memorize the fish caught one day ago. On the way back I could not resist to pick up an apple from the ground. It tasted very sweet and juicy, I had to get two more for Ines and Tobias. All three from the ground, thus windfall.

 

Ines and Tobias in the meantime went to the Blenheim swimming pool. Where they got free entrance as it was Tobias birthday – thank you Blenheim!

Our time on the South Island of New Zealand was coming to an end. The next day we would have to leave the South Island to go over to the North Island (NI). I was afraid of that plan and was not promoting it. Let’s see what NI has to offer?

 

 

PS: at the time of writing we/I have the second bottle on this trip of Wild Earth Pinot Noir 2009 - by far the best and most interesting Pinot we had - it was accompanied by plenty of lamb chops this night on Coromandl... the last lamb chops of this trip : (

Nelson at the Top of NZ NI – where is here good fishing?

As the Rainbow Road did not provide much in terms of fishing I had to get to the water as soon as possible. I remembered one semi hammered river just an hour away from Nelson, so I gave its middle/upper section a try (where a gravel road follows the river). Strange river with limited visibility on that day due to the partially covered sky and the dark river bottom. It did not look too bad at first but the fish number I spotted or spooked was rather low for my expectation. Nevertheless the river did run low and thus nice and clear. The fish I did not spook were rather spooky. I ended up blank. The leaves were about to turn yellow and brown - autumn was there. On the way back to the car a friendly farmer offered me a lift on his quad for part of the distance. For dinner Ines figured out to go to Milton Street Takeaway where we had decent fish-burgers. A good place for a quick and simple meal. And on that 1^st of April we fixed the accommodation from the next day onwards. As mentioned it was not easy to find something in Nelson that suited our needs at a reasonable price, nice setting and close to the center.

Tuesday we packed everything for the relocation and went on a winery and Nelson area tour. Visiting Höglund Glas (as usual), Kahurangi (surprisingly good wines), Neudorf (as usual, for lunch cheese or bring your own picnic in the garden, I still do not like their wines so much) and Woollaston (they would have offered a nice platter as lunch in a very nice setting with good wines – recommendation!). We unfortunately did not know about the lunch option and Wollerstone and had some greasy sandwich in the oldest pub of NZ and some so so cheese at Neudorf. 

 

 

This afternoon we relocated to our home of the following days: Avocado Apartment at Cleveland Terrace. An apartment that offered not just a very nice view over Nelson and the sea, quiet location, fully equipped nice kitchen, an orchard with fruits and vegetables to be consumed and a quality of building that we did not see often. The very friendly owners gave us a glass of absolutely delicious honey and a bunch of fruits to. At that point we did not yet know for how many days we would call that apartment home. Unfortunatly the avocados were far from ripe or ready to be harvested. 

One of the better restaurants in Nelson is the Hopgood’s, thus my idea was to go there, have a nice dinner and share this evening with Mike and his wife Nans. Mike the fishing guide pretty much introduced us to the NZ style of fishing three years ago. We were happy that his wife could finally join us and we had a nice evening with lots of fish talk. It was good to see him again and that there was no need to take care of the dishes afterwards.

Rain in the night and rain in the morning called for a very relaxed 3^rd of April of writing, editing pictures and shopping in the afternoon. Nothing more, nothing less. Most of the rivers might have been still good fishing till around early afternoon, but I did not feel the urge to go out in that downpour.

Thursday Ines and Tobias went to the center of New Zealand which was just some kilometers away, they continued via the Founders park, the Japanese gardens and back through the shopping parcours. I set up my fishing parcours as I had the idea to fish the river at the Rainbow Road (after getting the key from the station) that was still a little high and colored. Just saw and spooked very few trout in the silty water, fished two or three spots and finally decided to drive up all the way to of its major tributaries. There in the junction pool I hooked one fish on a fly not to be mentioned (neither dry nor nymph) and saw a dolphin taking a fly from the surface (looked like it was rolling) that left me with open mouth. This dolphin was either a huge trout of something ++10lbs or a very brown salmon. The sun was already close to the mountain’s ridge so I rushed up the river but did not spot any reachable fish. Too bad, should have gone there right from the beginning. No fish this sunny day but still a nice trip up that valley we drove down a few days ago in rain. I did not expect to be back so soon. The two upper sections look promising and even the fished stretch of the morning should be good on an according day. Driving back over the dirt road, opening and closing various gates, crossing streams and finally arriving at the paved road towards Nelson took quiet some while. 

For dinner we met a friend that I talked into New Zealand last summer. At first she just wanted to travel New Zealand for some month after graduation but she ended up to be a guide and finally the junior manager of a horse tracking business up on the very north tip of the SI. She extended here stay in NZ several times - might be my talking was good to start this.

Friday was supposed to be a real family day. We went to the beach, had a short swim and a dip up to the chest for Tobias. The sea was somewhat cool but ok for a swim and the beach deserted due to after-season. Tobias loved it till he shivered. I was feeding a metal-detector-guy with coins by throwing a couple in his search path. Before that I tried to get some input from Mike where to fish the next days. The input was slightly less specific than I hoped for, but it made me to drop my plan to do some chopper thing in the Kahurangi and instead confirmed my alternative plan to drive back to Reefton for another four days for focus on fishing and curing the fever that came back after the last fish less days. Further ‘our’ cottage in the village of light would be available for a stopover in between and for the last night. As the weather forecast was again altered I planned to start early the next day. 

The outlined planed was to fish two rivers, one for a campout and the other with rough 4WD track access and a night at a hut. It was time for some serious fishing again, I was hungry for some bush bashing and river walking! I was looking very forward for that and a couple of nights of solid sleep.

Leaving Ines and Tobias alone was acceptable for them as Nelson is a real gem and lovely village. Everything on hand, a nice apartment and relatively good weather announced. Nelson would definitely be one of the places to consider if relocation to New Zealand would be a serious option.

Karamea to Hanmer Springs - Easter on the Rainbow Road

After that cracker of four days in the bush in a convenient hut, with challenging but rewarding fishing and lots of walking, my feet were two sizes bigger and there was no need to move too much. 

I asked Ines to show me the Oparara Basin with the Moria Gate that Karamea is famous for. It was pretty much the excursion she ‘rehearsed’ on the day before with Tobias. So she went there again and I for the first time. The loop walk combines the arch / kind of cave and the tarn. It was a little longer than her estimation of ‘around 10 minutes’ – more to an hour. The Moria Gate provided some nice motives for pictures, especially a rock structure inside with its wave shaped erosion patterns glowed like gold in the low light of this semi-cave. 

(Might be anybody did recognize the frequently usage of the term 'semi' - it is more or less about making fun on a NZ butter brand that describes its product as "semi spreadable" but in fact it is the worst butter to spread I ever encountered. Other terms to make fun about would be 'retreat' or 'boutique'.) (... oh and the text in the brackets before was only inserted due to typograhpic reasons making the text more appropriate to the pictures) 

 

 

This night we had a reservation at the Riverstone Restaurant in Karamea. The best location for a dinner in the north west corner of SI. The food was very delicious and for the first time we had some whitebait (very small fish). It was served in an omelet as appetizer and tasted surprisingly good. This place can be recommended absolutely! Riverstone even offers two chalets as an accommodation option for the time after the beloved Karamea Lodge.

The next day meant to leave Karamea. We drove over the winding road – luckily Tobias was sleeping – towards Westport, up the Buller Valley. There I saw a group of three, one girl and two boys coming out of the bush with rods in their hands, right as we passed on a place where it was clear that they fished a river that we were fishing two years ago. I slammed the brakes, jumped out of the car and had the trout-bum interview: where, what, how far, how many, what size….? They did not do well (no fish) as they did not walk up far enough. We back then made pretty much the same mistake, nevertheless we had some fish contact. Our fishing there some years ago was kind of adventure. We walked in partly on the riverbed with very little local knowledge, camped around two hours in on a  good camping spot there. As we did not walk in far enough we had hard times fishing and only hooked/landed some fish on the first day. That night the rain started hard and it rained and rained and in the morning the only option was to break camp and rush out as the river was close to not fishable and the water rising fast. Around late morning we arrived at a little side creek that was on the way in just a creek of might be 0,5cums. Now it was a small river of boisterous 15-25cums with a very unclear main current. We had to set camp and pitch the tent again, found a good spot just 100 meters bush bashing up that creek. The plan was to wait for the creek to drop again. The rain eased but still it was raining. I defined the deadline with 7pm and a drop of the creek of 30 centimeters - in that case we would rush and head out the same evening. We spent a boring wet day in a tent, not much to read (Ines had something), not much food left for an additional night. Luckily it worked out, the rain stooped, the creek drooped exactly by the defined amount, we managed to cross the creek without losing control, headed out found the kind of track most of the time, luckily we had one good headlamp and finally arrived at the car at 21:45 close to pitch black - we were happy! The late meal in Greymouth we got in a bar tasted delicious! And we found dry accommodation! I pretty much realized my miss-planning: food, weather and did not go far enough : ) Still it was a good adventure to be told in future years. For this trip this kind of adventure was no option.

The other drivers on the road were not so happy about my parking in the middle of the road, so I ended the brief interview and we headed off. Reefton (hello cottage!), Springs Junction, Lewis Pass, and finally Hanmer Springs. Tobias was screaming around one and a half hour – so I could not fall as leap while driving. On the way towards Hanmer we booked the very last accommodation. A funny 60es style motel/cabin. Good for one night and reasonably cheap. We arrived close to dark.

It was Easter weekend. The worst place is to be on Easter is Hanmer. It was no intention it just happened and could not be avoided. Ines wanted to go to the Hot Pools. Not for me. As she saw the 100m queue she revised here intention. We did the groceries to drive the Rainbow Road north of Hanmer (take care to be informed about the access restrictions and rules on this 4WD metaled road, do not try it with a motor-home or a 2WD!) for a couple of days and to fish some rivers and lakes there. Due to the expected traffic and possible fishing pressure we drove right to basic Coldwater Creek camp and omitted some 4WD-river access. We passed the highest pass in New Zealand - pretty much without stopping as the landscape was of rather low attraction. At the camp there were two other groups at the campsite. A couple from NI that was just about to discover SI after traveling the whole world and a family celebrating their anniversary with both we had some friendly conversation.

This night rain started and the next morning looked everything else but friendly. The lakes where no option due to lack of visibility, wind and some gusts so we drove to a stream / tributary of the main river to check it out. But with an overcast sky spotting is very hard. It still rained and I was far less than motivated. We decided to head out immediately as the weather was not clear for the next days and I did not want to lose a day sitting in a wet tent. We continued further north towards the middle part of the Wairau valley, passed the Rainbow valley road and arrived in St. Arnaud without any plan where to drive afterwards and no accommodation for the night. Thus the next step was to find a cup of cappuccino as at least its handle would provide some hold. We found that and I had an awful time to figure out what to do and where to go. This really gave me and headache as the options where Blenheim, Nelson or St. Arnaud. After a while of checking out availability of accommodation and prices we ended up to book a night at our usual place in Nelson. The Rutherford Hotel in the big ugly building. But it offered again reasonable prices and high standard (btw the owner of the Hotel is famous for his nature destroying river dam projects – please do not support this and book somewhere else in case you are more sensitive than we were). That night the dinner was special: room cooked tortellini with a decent fresh ready-made sauce. The sprinkler did not start.