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.