4WDing and Fishing

We weren't sure what to do this weekend, whether to go hunting or fishing or tramping... or nothing-ing. Then we received a phone call late Friday evening from Greg's friend Rex, who lives about 100m up the road (Greg often goes rabbit shooting with Rex). Rex is 73 and is a mostly retired market gardener who grew up in Invercargill and now lives his life the way Greg would like to.... fishing and hunting and nothing-ing.

Rex was phoning to invite us out 4WDing with the Shotover 4WD club, of which Rex is a member. They go out on "club runs" every few weeks where they head into a different 4WD area near to here, and this week they were heading into the upper Mataura. We weren't sure if we'd know anyone, but we turned up at the meeting point and knew over half the people there, including Neil and Glenys from across the road.

We had a brilliant day, and were passengers in a number of different trucks throughout the day - everyone wanted us to jump in with them so that they could show off their trucks. We're trying hard to not get hooked as it seems to be an expensive hobby... but too late. We're already devising plans to either do up the Bighorn (snorkel, suspension, tow hooks, winch and mud tyres) or sell it and buy something more suitable.

It was more tiring than we thought it would be - we left home at 9:30am and bumped and jiggled our way through the next 10 hours, not getting home again until nearly 8pm, but it was soooo much fun.

The trucks lined up at the top of one of the two ridges we went up:

Stopping for a rest:

The view from the top of the ridge. In the foreground you can see the track we came up, and yes, we started off right down the bottom of the valley!

Cleaning the truck after one of the mud holes... it's much more fun to use fords than hoses.

This morning we awoke to find the lake mirror-flat and decided to not waste it, so we headed out fishing for a few hours. We did pretty well, coming up with 8 fish in under 2 hours. And no, we won't be telling anyone where we went!

Here's a photo of Greg's knarly old brown trout, which we figured to be about 6 pound. Check out the hump on it's head! Just like old snapper, they get bigger and uglier as they get older.

Return of the Rainbows!

It's been a while since we've been fishing and caught Rainbow Trout. There have been plenty of Brown Trout around, but the Rainbows have been somewhat elusive. It's not just us - everyone's been commenting... and of course the Brown Trout don't taste half as good as the Rainbows.

Anyway, we went out fishing a few days ago now that the lake has finally flattened off enough for us to get the boat out. For the first few hours it was looking like another fruitless effort, but right on dark we hooked up three fish in ten minutes - one of each, a Brown, a Rainbow and a Quinnat Salmon. The Rainbow was quickly dispatched and thrown into the chilly bin to be taken home! The others were released to fight another day.

Burton was delighted at our catch. Fresh water fish is one of his most favourite things (but not saltwater fish), alongside ham (but not heated or cooked), lamb (medium rare, he'll take the fatty bits we don't want thanks) and steak (eye fillet only, rare). He started going nuts as soon as we parked the boat back on the grass - he must have smelt the fish on our clothes. He spent the next 10 minutes sitting up perfectly straight next to the kitchen, you could almost hear him saying "See, I'm being awfully good!"

We've been searching for a nice way to cook trout that doesn't involve 2 different types of cream and cold cubed butter (although the tarragon cream sauce is nice, it's definitely a "sometimes food"!) and Andrea stumbled across a recipe for salmon fish cakes using mashed potato that she thought might adapt well to smoked trout. Sure enough, it was delicious and we're pleased to have a new recipe that's so easy! And we've got more fish cakes in the freezer for another easy meal.

Queen's Birthday Weekend

We've never looked forward to a long weekend quite so much! The past few weeks have been quite busy, with Andrea involved in the orchestra for the local production of Les Miserables and Greg's work having dramas all of it's own.

Queen's Birthday weekend rolled around and we largely spent the 3 days catching up on sleep and sitting as close to the log burner as we could get. Although we didn't get as much snow as was forecast (just a few snow showers on Sunday morning), the temperatures have been bitterly cold. Things finally cleared out and warmed up a little for Monday (this morning) - a balmy 3 degrees when we left home at 11am. We decided that since we hadn't actually done it yet, we'd take the walk around Lake Hayes, which is known for it's reflections (especially in Autumn). It's been so cold that parts of the lake have frozen. And were still frozen at midday when we walked through!

We took a few photos of the scenery - this one being the one that worked out the best due to passing cloud etc.

We headed home after the walk and had a bite to eat and then promptly headed out again. Greg has been hoping since we arrived here to be able to say he walked across the road from our house (to the beach) and caught a fish. Well today it finally happened..... twice!

The photos of the fish itself didn't come out very well due to it's wriggly nature and the fact that we try to get most fish back into the lake as quickly as possible when we're releasing them. We'd estimate both Rainbow trout at 4 lb. A good eating size, if you're that way inclined.

The first photo shows the first run just after hookup... which took out half the line on Greg's reel in about 20 seconds flat.

The second shot shows the splash just after the fish jumped out in an attempt to shake the hook free (a manouevre that often succeeds if there is any slack in the line).

Out on the water

Summer returned on the weekend (after a week of winter) treating us to two days of absolutely perfect weather. Not too hot, not too muggy, not too windy... just right.

On Sunday we were trying to decide whether to go fishing or wakeboarding. In the end, we decided on.... both. On the way we saw this beach, which we would have pulled up on if we hadn't already finished our lunch. Very pretty! And we also figured out we can walk there (easily) from home - it would take about 20 mins.

We didn't catch any fish this time, which is quite unusual. We think it's because the fish could see us coming:

You wouldn't believe that the photo was taken from the boat, into 10m of water! Because conditions were so still, the water was unbelievably clear - we could still JUST see the bottom at 40m depth which is about the height of an 8 storey building.

After the fishing we met up with Max and Fin and Morgan. Greg, Andrea and Max all got out wakeboarding, with Andrea staying on shore with Morgan so that Fin could watch Max on the board. It was Andrea's first time back since dislocating her shoulder and it went really well - the physio's strengthening exercises seem to have made her shoulders stronger than ever before.

The last photo is Max, photo taken by Fin.

Twizel

This weekend just passed Greg headed up to Twizel with the management team from work.. and fell in love with the place!

He had a great weekend fishing for Sock-Eye Salmon, Rainbow Trout and Brown Trout, and enjoying the views and the atmosphere.

The canals are an amazing feat of engineering, feeding many of the hydroelectric power stations in the area. Greg's interest was more that they were full of fish, and brilliant turquoise in colour (from the glacier melt) but he took some photos for the engineering geeks anyway!

Also in the area is Ohau Ski area - the boys fished in Lake Ohau - and Greg also took a photo for the snowbunnies. Ohau Ski Area is in the valley on the right hand side of the photo.

And last but not least is yet another sunset photo. Because you can't possibly have seen enough of them yet!

Moke Lake

On Sunday we decided to go for a walk around Moke Lake, which is about 10 minutes drive from downtown Queenstown. It is a high country lake in a horeshoe shape in the middle of Ben Lomond and Closeburn Stations. Very picturesque in winter!

As we've heard that there are some HUGE brown trout in this lake, Greg decided to take his spinning rod along. We have been to Moke Lake a number of times, and been fishing there a number of times, but to no avail. The closest we have come to catching a trout is a half-hearted version of a "follow in" where a fish follows the lure right in (almost to your feet) but fails to take the lure. For that matter, we don't even know anyone who has personally caught a fish there!

A howling southerly was blowing on Sunday, meaning there were only a few places that were able to be fished without ending up covered in nylon fishing line. So we set off and walked to the southern end of one of the "arms" of the horseshoe. After trudging out through the swamp, Greg started casting. After about 4 casts, this happened:

If you can't tell, this is about a 7 pound brown trout. It fought long and hard, but after 15 minutes Greg won the battle and landed it. This photo was taken on Greg's phone as Andrea forgot to take the camera, and has been downloaded thanks to the card reader John Houltham bought us while he was here - thanks!!

As brown trout aren't particularly good eating, the fish was released back into Moke Lake to fight another day.

We aren't intending on going away this weekend and are going to take it easy. We'll find another hill or two to climb up maybe, but nothing more adventurous than that. We're expecting gale force winds so we probably won't get the boat out. It's been a frustratingly windy summer, but hopefully it will all settle down in another month.

Winter Season passes for skiing and snowboarding go on sale next week - roll on winter!

Lupins, Lupins and more Lupins...

As promised, some photos of the Lupins. They come in a very wide range of flowers and grow pretty much everywhere.

Some pink and purple lupins....


And some yellow lupins....

And lots of different coloured lupins!

These were all taken on Peninsula Road, about 3 minutes drive from home. Apparently the lupins down at the Arrow River are even prettier, but we haven't quite managed to get that far yet.

We had a very quiet weekend, didn't get up to much. After Friday night's wakeboarding we took it easy on Saturday, cutting, carrying, splitting and stacking 3 cubic metres of firewood. We are now completely finished with the firewood for winter next year. Sunday we got up early again and headed out wakeboarding with Ross and Deborah from across the road. It was the flattest we have ever seen Lake Wakatipu - awesome as it was Deborah's first time (and she got up on her 3rd attempt!). After we got home and unpacked the boat we headed back out to do some spinning (fishing from shore with little plastic lures). Supposedly we were heading out for "an hour or two". We returned home 4.5 hours later, with a rainbow trout we cooked up for dinner. It is now 7pm and we are both ready for bed! It's a hard life...