Waipara Valley and Limestone Hills

So today I left the Murchison area and headed back toward Waipara and the grape growing region near Christchurch. I was heading to my friend Gareth Renowden's place to see his truffiere, talk mushrooms and see his shearers cottage. But first, I stopped at the swingbridge that goes over the Buller River and took some photos. This is the longest swingbridge in New Zealand which crosses the Buller Gorge...a long way down!

They have a ride called the high speed comet line which is like a zip line that you can either fly across on your belly or sit down like in a chair and ride across the gorge at high speed from great heights. I was hoping someone would come along and pay to go so I could video them. I suggested to the guy at the comet line that he find someone to go across and he said, he'd take my camera and I should go tell his mate Peter that Markie sent me and he'd film me...so that's what we did. It was really fun and not even as scary as walking across the swingbridge.

Before I got too far out of town, I stopped for a brief time to meet the new owners of Maruia River Lodge on the Maruia River. They are a lovely young couple and I think will do a good job as new lodge owners and I wish them the best of luck with their new venture. I had some extra time on my hands since Gareth had left me a message on my voice mail saying he was going to be in Christchurch until later and wouldn't be home until around 5:30. That meant I had time to take a rod and a walk on the Maruia River and see if I could find a trout to hook. Unfortunately I didn't see any trout so after about an hour and a half I was back on my way south and east. Of course it wouldn't be New Zealand if you didn't have to stop once in a while and wait for someone moving sheep.

Did I hear anyone say truffles? Maybe not this time of year in the southern hemisphere, but Gareth Renowden and his wife Camille have a truffiere planted with English Oak and hazelnut trees with the roots inoculated with the tuber melanosporum truffle spore with high hopes of harvesting the black Perigord truffle this coming winter. Two winters ago he harvested his first ever truffle and hopes that by this next June there will be more. He also has planted olive trees for pressing into olive oil and a nice vineyard of Pinot Noir grapes and Syrah.

After talking mushrooms and travel all night and exhanging mushroom photos of Gareth's trip to China and Shangrila, and some of my multitude of mushroom photos of which Gareth refers to as "mushroom porn" since he lives in a somewhat mushroom deprived country now, we called it a night. Of course it didn't hurt that we had a lovely roasted chicken dinner and polished off 4 bottles of wine between the three of us.

Gareth has also just published his new book entitled "Hot Topic" Global warming and the future of New Zealand" I'm looking forward to reading it on the plane coming home.

Hanmer Springs to Owen River

Today was kind of a bust. I took off this morning from Riverview Lodge and only got about 20 kilometers and had to turn around and go back. There had been a horrible fatality accident involving a car and truck on the Lewis Pass Road going to the west coast and they had to close the road for about 3 hours to investigate and clear the bodies etc. Not a pretty picture at all and not what you want to ever see on the road. I got there just after I'd been in the town of Hanmer Springs when the siren went off for the volunteer fire department. As I got up the road about 20 k's the road was closed off to through traffic and they said it woud be up to 4 + hours before they had the road cleared, so I had to go back to Riverview Lodge and wait it out. While I was up there a helicopter life flighted someone out so I hope they make it ok. I finally got my start at 4:15PM to drive my 2+ hour drive to Owen River Lodge. I got there around 6:30 and finally I could relax again.

These roads in New Zealand are quite wiggly and winding and people tend to drive too fast and underestimate the speed on curves even though they post the optimum speed. I can't imagine how an accident of this severity could happen on a sunny, clear day with no slippery roads or ice or rain or anything, It had to be all driver errors. I've seen fatality accidents in Montana where people fall asleep at the wheel because driving through Montana is all straight and hardly any curves, but over here, it's all curves so that can't possibly be the problem. I'm guessing the small car was going too fast around the curve and got into the gravel on the shoulder and over corrected when they lost control and ended up going under the trucks' trailer and the car was just toast! No way anyone could have survived a crash of that magnitude. OK...enough of that. I can see it's not going to go away in my mind very soon.....

Today the weather is better than yesterday but although it started out this morning without a breath of wind, it picked up big time this afternoon around 2:00. I hope tomorrow will be a good day as I'm heading out in the morning with a guide for the day for some west coast fishing. We're not quite all the way on the west coast but we're certainly close. I hope the fishing will be better than yesterday!

We had a nice meal of Lamb chops and home grown brocolli, and baby new potatoes with profiteroles with chocolate for desert.

I'm off to bed now as it's been a trying day dealing with the hard cold facts of life that if people don't drive carefully, they die! Someone's family or family's are going to have a long hard time dealing with the reality of what happened today.

Riverview Lodge Hanmer Springs

Wow, what a view from this place! The Southern Alps in the background and all the colors of spring...pretty magnificent. Too bad the fishing couldn't have been as good. I guess we're not in Motu anymore, Toto!!!

Today John and I walked what seemed like an eternity over river rocks and didn't see a whole lot of fish. On top of that, the weather has changed a bit here heading into the mountains and the wind blew all day from the minute I got up this morning until now and I believe it's still howling out there. Ever try casting a flyrod directly into gale force winds? it's not pretty, let me tell you. At times my cast came back right at me and tried to wack me in the face. This is not my idea of fun and it's not at all like Motu where there are fish everywhere and you can SEE THEM!!!!! OK...enough whining. We only saw three fish and I hooked two of them and landed one...albeit a rather smallish one, but it was a sea run brown so it was feisty and different to look at. Better than nothing I reckon...although the pesky sand flies are not much fun to deal with...that's a fact of life on the west coast of the South Island though and you just have to be prepared with bug stuff which we were.



When we returned to the lodge, Robin had a pleasant surprise in store for me. We took a run into Hanmer Springs and she had a pass for us each to take a soak in the hot pools and have a Swedish Massage, which was absolutely delightful. It saved the day as far as I was concerned.... that was a very nice surprise and then we came home to the most elegant and gourmet dinner. They have hired a chef from Germany for the season as well as another person from Switzerland to serve and help out. They did a great job and the chef is quite talented.


Tomorrow I have all day to drive all of two hours so I can take my time and maybe go back into Hanmer Springs and look around in the shops. Not much was open today as it is Sunday,

Ciao for now...I'm heading for bed.

Christchurch to Riverview Lodge- Hanmer Springs

Today after picking up my rental car and then doing what seemed like massive amounts of computer work, I finally headed out of Christchurch toward Hanmer Springs, a small alpine thermal resort about a 90 minute drive toward the west coast in the Canterbury region of the South Island.

On the way I stopped off at the Pegasus Bay Winery and had lunch with a lovely and very interesting man from Montreal. After a 2 hour lunch, I figured I was now late and hustled my way to the lodge.

Riverview Lodge is just on the way into the town of Hanmer Springs. The setting is majestic with the Southern Alps as a backdrop. We had a nice dinner of wild duck and there is a couple from England staying the night.

Tomorrow will be another fishing day so let's hope I have some photos and something to talk about then.

Wednesday Motu

Tomorrow we are off to the Ruakitori River for the largest rainbows to be had in all of New Zealand. It’s also the eastern most rainbow trout fishery in the country. Frank owns a cabin on the Ruakitori, knicknamed the Ruakitori Hilton. I have high hopes for a big rainbow tomorrow. We’ll spend the night in Gisborne tomorrow night and then I’ll have a town day on Friday while I’m waiting to fly down to Christchurch on the South Island Friday afternoon. It will be Thanksgiving Day in the US. If I don’t get my next blog written in time, Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

Ciao for now.....

Happy Thanksgiving!

Today is Thanksgiving in the US. Here in Gisborne, New Zealand, we are having an exceptional heat wave. Yesterday on the Ruakitori it was 92 degrees. That’s crazy hot for November which is springtime in New Zealand. Today it is not quite as hot, more like 88 degrees which is still plenty hot.

I’m on an airplane now flying from Gisborne to Wellington and then on to Christchurch on the South Island. I’m on the leg from Wellington to Christchurch now. I hope the weather is as nice on the South Island as it’s been sunny and gorgeous since I got here. It would be ok if it was not quite as hot though...just a teeny bit. My computer weather bug tells me it’s 3 degrees at home in SW Montana....Yikes!

The flight time from Wellington to Christchurch is only 30 minutes so I’ll be landing there in a jiffy. I’m meeting an old friend of mine from my California days and her husband and we’re heading out for a Friday night on the town. They are new in town in the last month. Susan’s husband is doing his three year doctoral program in Christchurch on plant physiology and he’s doing allot of research over on the west coast where the glaciers are. I’m interested in what exactly he is researching.

So, tonight it’s Christchurch for one night. Tomorrow I’ll go check out some properties here and then head off late morning to Hanmer Springs to another fishing lodge called Riverview Lodge.

I’m sorry I haven’t been able to update my blog for a few days. Motu is very remote and I was not able to use my laptop out there. Same thing goes for where we spent the night in Gisborne last night...dialup only and I couldn’t go on with my computer as I don’t have the program needed to go online. Hopefully I’ll be in good shape tonight at Orari B&B.

More tomorrow.

Ruakituri Hilton and the Rainbows

Today we drove up to the Ruakituri River where Frank has his batch (cabin). The Ruakituri is well known for having the largest rainbow trout in New Zealand living in it. It’s quite a rocky and slippery river and wading is difficult but the fish are gigantic! The rainbows love fast water and there is plenty of that on this river. There is also a plethora of aquatic insect life on this river so plenty of food to make this trout get big.

Unfortunately, since the rainbow trout are so light colored, they are not real easy to spot in the river like the brown trout are. Also since they are holding in the fastest water in the river, that also makes them much harder to see. But, when you do see them you can’t believe your eyes how big they are.

My last day, Wednesday on the Motu River, I spotted a brown trout that would have easily gone 12+ pounds. He looked like a salmon sitting in the river...just plain huge! Unfortunately the paradise ducks spooked him.

Well, unfortunately I don’t have any photos of big rainbows to show you since I didn’t land any! I caught three nice big rainbows yesterday, got to see them when they jumped but they are super fast and super strong and managed to spit the hook or just break me off entirely. Today, between the highly difficult wading, my new knee and the size of these fish, I wasn’t as successful as I’d hoped but just hooking them and playing them for a few minutes is a great treat. The rainbows in the Koranga are big also and I had one charge my fly so hard I almost had it pulled out of my hands. These fish are crazy and stronger than any trout I’ve ever seen anywhere else I’ve ever fished. I cast my fly into a fast riffle going into a big deep pool and the fish hit my fly so hard it just busted the dry fly and dropper right off in one easy motion. I never got to see this particular fish but I know it was a monster. I did hook two other fish on the Ruakitori that jumped clear out of the water and showed themselves quite nicely. Again, BIG FISH!!! I am always amazed at the size of these trout.

Tomorrow I’m off to the South Island.