Reflections from Te Anau

I've slept in a bed 3 nights this year.

Since I arrived on the South Island the 2nd of January, Josh, Sky, and I have camped out all over this island.  After spending the past month in my tent alongside various rivers, in numerous forests, and on a couple of holiday park lawns, I'm feeling I need a little time to recharge my batteries (literally: iPod, camera), sleep on a mattress with a pillow, and figure out where the next few weeks are going to take me. 

Sky and Josh left me here in Fiordland this morning, as they have flights out of Christchurch this weekend.  In the 2 or 3 days between now and their trips to Australia and home, respectively, they have to drive almost 700 km to Christchurch, clean and sell a vehicle, and all the small laundry and catch-up chores necessary before a big trip.  I'm happy I don't have to do the same.

That leaves me here in the far south, willingly alone, and I am excited for all of the things that I can just pack up and go do.  After a night or two here in Te Anau looking at weather, checking OKs with the Department of Conservation for my solitary river trip plans here and there, and looking for a job somewhere, I'll be out exploring again.  For now, it's a nice change of pace to be by myself and wandering around.

I am looking into camping and fishing a couple of nights near the beginning of the Milford Track, or on one of the other rivers near Te Anau.  After that, I think I will head back to Queenstown for some trips near there, and slowly make my way north.  I do have a Working Holiday Visa, and so I am considering finding paid work somewhere.  Right now, I'm hoping to find a ranch near Mt. Cook with good fishing on the property.  Maybe a farm with an employees-only exclusive spring creek?

We'll see.

Some pictures to illustrate our latest travels:

All of these pictures are from the past week.  Whereas the north end of the South Island is temperate rainforest filled with palm-leaved trees and lots of water everywhere, my surroundings now are much more similar to eastern Oregon or Montana.  We've put quite a few miles... er, kilometers.. on the van recently trying to tick off rivers that Josh visited 2 years ago, as well as some creeks that I wanted to see but knew I wouldn't reach without a vehicle once they left.

The road atlas we've been using notes all the Lord of the Rings filming locations, and we've made our way through half a dozen of the sites in the past few days.  Though I have only seen one of the movies (sorry), it certainly does look like we are on the set of the movie as we walk across the hills and fields.  Any fans of the series reading might be interested to know that we camped and fished all over the area from the movie known as Fangorn Forest.

Fishing a Southland stream.  Looks a lot different than the northern part of the island!

6.5 pounder looking a little small here

Fishing in the Fangorn Forest from Lord of the Rings

Small creek fish

Josh excited to be outside on new water

Parting ways.  My pack at left.

James

Coastal Fun

Since my last blog post, the guys and I drove west from Murchison to the coast, and spent 2 nights camping on the beaches near Hokitika and south of Franz Josef and Fox Glaciers. Josh and Sky had only another week to explore a bit of the south again, so this was a bit of a lightning run to the area south of Queenstown for some quick trips before they fly home.
Camping in un-designated camp areas (parking lots, sand dunes), AKA freedom camping, is not exactly legal in this country, and we have not done much of it.  However, there are times when a guy just has to have some bonfires on a beach and sleep in the sand, and we really just had to bend the rules a bit and be discreet about it.

On our way south down the coast, we made the short unguided hike to the terminal face of Franz Josef Glacier.  On the hike in we passed a plaque that showed the first photo taken of Franz Josef Glacier, and it took us 25 minutes to walk from the nineteenth century terminus of the glacier to where it is now.  I'm pretty curious about the terrain east of this coastal region, which is quite mountainous (home to Mt. Cook), and I would like to check it out when I head north again eventually. 

Near the terminal face of Franz Josef glacier

The first night on the beach we played Frisbee until dark, and then made beer can burgers in the embers of our fire.  To make a beer can burger, you'll need a couple of beers, some burger meat, onions, salt, and seasoning.  Then drink 3/4 of the beer, fill the rest of the can with meat and onions, and put in the fire for 5 to 10 minutes.  Finally, cut the top of the can off and dump contents onto a hamburger bun.  It probably instills some horrible toxin from the aluminum into the food, but it's tasty.

Somewhere on the South Island's West Coast

Making friends on the beach

Beer can burgers

Checking a deep country spring creek for browns

The second night camping on the beach was one of the most memorable fishing experiences of my life.  Josh had known about the kahawai fishery (a big-ocean, strong cousin of tuna and jacks) near the mouths of some of the rivers here, and we decided to check it out.  To be honest, I didn't think we would catch anything, but after rigging up Josh quickly hooked and lost a nice fish in the nervous water between the river delta and the incoming surf.  He started screaming for me to run over, I obliged, and hooked another fish on my first cast. 

Second night camping on the coast

Josh walking in

One of my most unforgettable experiences yet

Bringing in some dinner

We could see these fish tailing everywhere, and they were willing to eat just about anything.  For an hour and a half, we had many doubles and triples (multiple fish on at a time), and we each got a fish for dinner to cook in our fire wrapped in foil.  The fishing (..catching) was so good, I even got one on a surface popper meant for dorado in Baja Mexico.

Our quarry

We fished until dark and then rinsed off in the river so we didn't have that scratchy, uncomfortable feel of dried saltwater on our clothes.  The kahawai was a bit chewy, but we each had our fill and went to bed.  In the morning, we drove on to the town of Wanaka, which is a lot like a small Queenstown (camera was dead, so no pictures now.  I'll probably go back). 

We've Returned

Two nights ago, we flew out of the wilderness having safely completed a 5 night heli fishing trip.

Now, picture the South Island of New Zealand.  It doesn't matter if you have never read much about it, just conjure the bits and pieces you might have gathered from the Lord of the Rings movies, fishing magazines, and whatever else.

That's exactly what it looks like.

Everywhere I turn in this country, I find myself saying to the guys "This looks like the cover shot of my 50 Places to Fly Fish Before you Die book," or "Man, that's the classic South Island pool" and so on.  I'm constantly amazing at the juxtaposition of ferns, gin-clear but emerald-tinged rivers, rocky outcrops, and freshwater springs and rivulets spouting into the various valleys we have visited.

When we arrived at the heli pad 7 days ago, we were ready to charge the mountains and rivers hard for a week.  We had planned to take off first thing in the morning, with a 7 am flight time to ensure that we got to our pre-planned spot before any other anglers for the week. 

The ideal New Zealand fishing situation is to fish a river after a 'fresh.'  As the weather here seems to oscillate between 4 days of rain followed by 4 days of sun, fly fishermen all vie to be the first on a piece of water when the rivers are dropping and clearing after a few days of hard rain.  After watching the weather from our basecamp for a week, we knew that the perfect weather window was coming up, and that if we could make it to our river before anyone else, the fish would be looking up and ready to eat, and we would be there to meet them.

Thus, we found ourselves standing in front of a small blue helicopter on a dry and clearing early Monday morning.  You may have read that one can risk life and limb in NZ in countless ways with almost no concern for legal liability or assumption of risk, and it's true.  After shaking hands with our pilot, Wayne, and stuffing our bags into the cargo space, we each wrote our first name and weight on a small piece of paper.  Wayne pointed out the axe, flashlight, and first aid kit (all of which I can only imagine we might need if we managed to survive a crash landing in the temperate rainforest backcountry), and wrote down our pick up date, time, and location on the back of his hand with a pen.

Five minutes after showing up, we were flying east over the coastal farms, and soon found ourselves blasting over ridge lines into the foggy voids of valleys further inland.  The flight in and out of our destination was one of the coolest things I've ever done, and I really can't explain how fun it was to zoom over the tree tops and skim the rivers on the way in. 

View from the heli pad

The horse we rode in on

Once I get home, I'm planning to make a video of it all, most likely to some sort of CCR or Stevie Ray Vaughn soundtrack.  Call it cliche, but you know that's really the best music to which one can set helicopter footage.

Sky sitting up front

After landing at the confluence of the main river and the tributary we were set to fish, we put our packs on and immediately walked into a hornet's nest.  Just before this trip, my mom had told me to buy some Benadryl for exactly that kind of situation, but I couldn't find any, and luckily it turns out none of us is allergic to bees.

Post bee-stings

We immediately started seeing fish on the way in.  There were 5 right here in the first pool.

For the next 8 hours, we trudged upstream, constantly crossing and re-crossing the high and dropping (perfect!) stream.  We saw lots of fish on the way in, and set up our camp for 3 nights on a grassy gravel bar.  Josh immediately caught a 5.5 and a 6.5 lb brown trout on successive casts next to our tents.  On large dry flies.

Base of operations for 3 nights

 

 

One of the 2 camp fish

The following morning, we woke up to our camp being buzzed by a helicopter filled with competing fishermen.  Unfortunately, they didn't see us and landed on the next pool downstream.  We only managed to get their attention once their heli had taken off again, but as we were there first and in plain sight, they called in another chopper and left us alone (proper etiquette for which they should be commended here).  It seems they ended up with a pretty expensive bill for the day.

Everyone caught some good fish, and I won't bore you with the details except to say that Josh caught his trophy 8 pound brown trout, I got my 6 pounder, and we caught lots of other fish averaging 5 pounds, mostly on large cicada dry flies.

The big hog

 

 

Day trip fishing from our camp

A good fish

My big trout of the trip.  Ate a stonefly nymph and ran upstream through a rapid, which caused much confusion.  Really fun fish to catch.

Last fish on the first day

The peak that stood watch on our camp

This fish eventually got away from Sky

Headed out

After 3 nights on that river, we walked back out to the main river, and spent 2 nights there.  The first night we stayed at one of the new backcountry huts, and were finally relieved to be able to sit in shorts and T-shirst without being eaten alive by sandflies.

Our first hut

The hut 

 

Me looking around before dinner

The next day, we woke up and hiked 10 kilometers upstream to our pick up point, and stayed the night in a small hut there.  Before being picked up the next day, we spent the day fishing the main river and found lots of rising fish to play with before the flight out.

One of the swing bridges on the track

The smaller hut on our last night

 We made it back to our base in Murchison just in time for another dinner with theWinter family and fellow anglers Tom and Elizabeth.  The 10 of us sat down to 6 different pizzas, 3 cookie pizzas with ice cream, and it was great to be around such fun and interesting people.  It's a special place.

The Winter's wallabies

Pizza dinner cooked up by Brent Winter and Elizabeth

We will take the next week to tour the West Coast, hitting places like Franz Joseph glacier, hopefully a couple of small spring creeks, and end up in Wanaka or Queenstown.  Josh and Sky will split for Fiji, Argentina, Hawaii, Austrailia, or Jackson, depending on where the mood hits them in the next week for their flights out on February 4th.  From there, I'll have another 2 months to do... something.

When I do whatever it happens to be, I'll check in here.
























 

Lately We've Been..

I'll begin by saying that computer access in New Zealand is quite expensive, so I'm not quite able to write the well planned blog updates I'd like to be posting.

That being said, I'm going to try and update a bit of our latest outings with the 21 minutes I have remaining:

Upon returning from our last trip, the boys and I have been doing a few day trips around the Murchison area (weather permitting), and have also managed enough time around the Kiwi Park where we're staying to do laundry, watch lots of rain, and read some fishing magazines.

One of the guys who lives here at the Kiwi Park is named Henry, and the guy seems to have caught 'the bug,' as we call it, and so we took him out fly fishing on a nearby river earlier this week.  It has been fun watching him learn and improve his casting, start figuring how to spot the fish, and finally get his first fish on a fly rod (below).  Although it's a bit skinny, that brown is not too shabby to be one's first fly-caught fish! 

On Wednesday we got the chance to fish with Tony Entwistle, who is quite a knowledgeable and well-known Kiwi fly fishing guide.  We fished together all day and went out to dinner afterwards, but I stupidly had only 2 minutes worth of battery for the trip, so came away with no pictures.  We did get a couple videos, though, so here's one of me with a small but fun NZ brown trout (hooked immediately after missing a much larger fish).




 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hzv9fWyOo58&feature=youtu.be

In between trips to the local rivers, we've spent a lot of time holed up in the communal cooking areas here at the Kiwi Park.  The rains have been pretty severe for the last 3 days or so, which blows out the rivers and prevents us from doing much of anything.  Murchison, where we're staying, is a small but very cool little town, and one can only take the short van ride into town to peruse the one musty used book store and eat ice cream scoops before acquiring an acute case of cabin fever.
 

Therefore, when we looked at today's weather forecast for much of the same cloudy and rainy conditions, we took the opportunity to drive north to the town of Nelson to gather supplies for our upcoming heli-fishing trip.

                                           Relaxing at a cafe in downtown AND SUNNY Nelson.

The climate in Nelson is really neat, you encounter both palm and pine trees, and the town is surrounded by kiwi farms, vineyards, raspberry farms, and so on.  It seems like almost anything grows there, and the weather is really pleasant.

Tonight we had dinner with the Winter family (owners of Kiwi Park), and Tom and Elizabeth (Americans on a long fishing visit in Murchison).  Elizabeth cooked up some mean lasagna and the pans were immediately empty.

For dessert, we cooked up 12 of these plate-sized 'Pizzookies.'  They are exactly what they sound like, and are just as delicious.

On Monday we are headed out for a 5 night heli fishing trip, so I'll hopefully have some good pictures next week at some point.  The location is a secret, but we hear it fishes well after a 'fresh' (recent rain- we've had a lot!), so maybe that will be in our favor.

We had a couple of rivers in mind, but our 2 top choices were out of the question after learning there are already people on them right now.  The first has a team of Brits on it for 9 days (apparently they've been getting hammered by the rain up there for 4 days now), and a similar story for the other option.

We have therefore decided upon a third option further into the bush, and are pretty excited, with perhaps a bit of a healthy nervous feeling one might expect before stepping into a man-made steel dragonfly for the first time.

Update from Murchison

I've been on the South Island for almost a week now, and am loving it!

This past October, my friend Ben told me his buddies were going to fish New Zealand for 3 months this winter.  Since he knew I had a similar plan, he suggested I try to coordinate a trip with the guys, and I sent off a cordial Facebook message to one of them.

Fast forward 2 months, and I step off the ship from the North Island in the South Island port of Picton.  Shortly thereafter, Josh Gallivan and Sky Denton pulled up in their green van, introduced themselves, and we drove to the town of Murchison to plan some fishing trips together, having only met that afternoon.  Josh is a fly fishing guide over in Jackson (see www.joshgallivan.com ), and Sky manages an adventure shop in Hawaii.

The next morning, following a stop for some granola bars, chocolate, and canned tuna, we headed into the back country for a 4 night trip in the bush.  We chose a river (it won't be named here... or ever), and proceeded to zig-zag our way up the roadless, trail-less valley. 

On the way in; endless river crossings

      Buffs up to keep the sandflies out

For years now, I've been reading about the sight fishing opportunities that New Zealand has to offer, and this trip didn't disappoint.  This style of fishing is a lot more akin to hunting, as the 3 of us would slowly work our way up the banks in an effort to spot fish and cast dries or dry/dropper rigs to feeding fish.  As we are a group of 3, we take turns on fish, no matter who spotted them.  Whether the caster catches (or more often, loses) the fish or not, the next fish is the next person's, and so on.  This ensures that people don't get into tiffs over the biggest or easiest fish.

Though I've only had 4 days on the river here, this trip didn't disappoint.

 

Josh's best fish of the trip

                                                                    Sunset from camp

    The boys feeding the catadromous eels in the pool below our camp.  Turns out they love leftover macaroni and tuna.

 

Eels chowing down.  These things are born in the mid-Pacific, migrate up New Zealand's rivers and live there scavenging for 30+ years, then migrate back out to the ocean to spawn and die. Pretty cool.

                                                    My best New Zealand brown yet. 4 lbs.

                                     Steak dinner and sundaes in Murch the night we got off the river

                                                            Solid breakfast on a duff day

 

Cool little church on the Buller River 

                                                                                                                                                          

Stay tuned for more, as we are currently planning something that involves helicopters and some of the most remote locations on New Zealand's South Island.