Dynamic Duo: The Final Hours

After we celebrated Zach's birthday in Queenstown, we slowly made our way back up to Christchurch to get Zach back in time for his flight back home.  We made a few pit stops along the way.  We took the long way home and stopped in Mossburn to fish that area once more as well as indulge in a meat pie from the local cafe in town.  If you ever get a chance to get to Mossburn, get a pie from the cafe across the street from the Four Square Super Market.  They sell chicken and venison pies served with an apricot and plum sauce.  We've had a ridiculous amount of pies while in New Zealand and this one takes the cake.  Congrats to them as they have truly outdone themselves.  We camped by the Aparima River just south of Mossburn and started walking up the river that next morning.  We didn't see a single fish, even in the areas that we had spotted fish on previous trips to this river.  After about a km or two, we see the aggravating site of fly line floating through the air ahead of us.  We immediately gave up on spotting fish and cruised up to this lone fisherman to find a woman flinging a double nymph rig in a not so type loop and slapping the water ahead.  I yelled with a chuckle, "No wonder we weren't seeing any fish...!"  She turned and we started chatting.  She was very hospitable and said there might be two guys up ahead of her but she wasn't sure.  She offered to let us walk up ahead but etiquette is etiquette and we told her that she was there first and that the water was hers.  Bummed, but glad we saw her as soon as we did, we walked back to the car to drive to some different water.  It turned from nice, clear skies to clouds in what seemed like a matter of minutes which really screwed our next fishing venture up considerably.  The Hamilton Burn, which is a difficult river at this time of year anyway became impossible to fish with little to no visibility.  So, after a couple more pies, we cruised down to the section of the Oreti River that flows through town and parked by the river.  Since we had just recently acquired a fresh case of beer we decided to test out some brand new Speights coozies we bought and put down a few drafts.  We came up with this game to make things interesting.  The game consisted of us going through our own iPods and playing artists that we didn't know.  If the other person recognized the song, the person playing the song had to chug the rest of his beer.  This game didn't last very long because, unfortunately, a while back, I acquired the Top Gun soundtrack as well as one of those infomercial Best of the 80's albums with a bunch of really popular 80's songs by a bunch of one hit wonders that I have never heard of.  Needless to say, I had two beers down pretty quickly and the game ended about as soon as it began.  The fishing was obviously a bust due to inclement weather as well as a fuzzy brain from our beer consumption.  One was obviously caused by the other.    

We also stopped in Gore to check out some water there, but the weather continued to be crap and we decided to count our losses and continue onto the east coast to say that we saw it.  We did stop and take the necessary photos of the giant brown trout, considering Gore is the "World Capital of Brown Trout Fishing".

We drove through Dunedin and decided to make one detour to a river near Fairlie to spend the next day fishing.  The fishing was pretty good, or at least we saw plenty of fish.  We tried hard to get Zach into one more fish before he departed but it wasn't in the cards that day.  I ended up hooking into two fish and blew one more opportunity.  Both fish were good looking fish in the 4-5 lb range that took a nymph dropper.

This was quite the acrobatic jack.

We made it up a decent ways and would've loved to continue on as the weather was really good up to this point.  However, a brutal north westerly wind, or, norwester to the locals kicked up and essentially made casting impossible.  When casting an 18-20 foot leader, that head wind can really mess things up in a hurry.  We headed back to the car through the treacherous wading conditions of this particular river.  There were deep, swift crossings as well as big, bowling ball sized slippery rocks to try and maneuver over without busting your ass.

Once back at the car, we cheers one last celebratory beer as that was Zach's last day of fishing while in New Zealand.  We packed up the rods and organized some gear before we made our last plunge towards Christchurch as the fearsome twosome.  As I said my good byes to Zach, I immediately started planning my next route to tackle alone.  The compass pointed northwest.  Murchison was my next stop.  I had only two weeks of fishing left and I wanted to make sure they were memorable.  Updates will follow.

Hold Strong...

Bit the bullet and went bungy jumping.  Here are some pictures of the day.  To anyone with the predicament of whether to sky dive or bungy jump, it isn't even a question.  Trust the rubber.

Check out the video here.

Queenstown

First off, I apologize for the lack of posts.  Hopefully, I can get all of them in tonight, but otherwise, I will fill them in as I go.  Most of them are outdated, but stories nonetheless.

Onto Queenstown...

It's difficult to put down into words exactly what went down in Queenstown.  As Les so eloquently put it, "It took a month out of my wallet and a year off of my life."  We rolled into Queensotwn on a Monday and were immediately overwhelmed and stressed by the amount of people and cars swarming the streets.  You have to understand that the previous three weeks have not exactly been epitomized by "urban dwelling" or any human interaction for that matter.  We have stayed at a couple campsites or hostels along the way, but each were just a glorified, flatter piece of grass to pitch a tent than the rocky river beds we had previously called home.  Driving into Queenstown was every bit of a culture shock as it was for me visiting Minneapolis for the first time after living in Montana for a year or so.  Busy.

Queenstown initially didn't impress me.  I could confidently attribute that to the ridiculous stress level we had reached when having to deal with "one ways", pedestrian cross walks, round abouts and street lights.  You also have to remember that we are driving on the right side of the car and on the left side of the road, so everything is completely ass backwards.  We finally did find the hostel.  It was called the "Backpackers Lakeside".  The girls met us there and we planned for kind of a last hoorah for the five of us before we begin most of our back country trips and they continue on to do whatever it is they are going to do.  The hostel actually had rooms for $25 per person and the rooms had beds.  I hadn't slept in a bed for all of at least 3 weeks.  I'm not gonna lie, it felt pretty damn outstanding.  The hostel was right on the lake and about a 3 minute walk from downtown.  It was a pretty perfect location.  Queenstown slowly was winning back some points.

Because this town is so touristy and there really aren't too many good fishing options close to Queenstown, we decided to dedicate the next two days to living it up in the city.  This is where I cue my mother to stop reading.  Ha!

Instead of doing a play by play and reminiscing all of the seemingly poor decisions we made in the process, let me just try to describe the nights events in a few phrases.  Drinks were had, ear drums suffered, sleep was lost, fun was had and I pissed off a pier into the lake.

A few notable spots were riding the bull at the cowboy bar, which is about the most stereotypical American cowboy bar in New Zealand.  More American than most American bars in America.  We ate at Fergburger, which is open late night and is extra sloppy when consumed late at night.  Not sure exactly why.  Jesse Lance Robbins can rest assured that his record of two Big Al Fergburgers in one day is safe.  Nobody even attempted it out of pure fear of such a task.

We made friends with a Brit named Louis who ended our second night by taking us to a bar called the "Boiling Room" where they stay open until 4 am, and yes mother, we closed it down.  All of the other places were less memorable, however they all contributed to our less than desirable states come Wednesday.

Since Queenstown is the capital of extreme activities, we spent our final day jet boating in Shotover Canyon, just outside of town.  I was a little skeptical of the entire thing because it was damn expensive and it didn't seem like anything mind blowing.  However, I was soon proven wrong.  These jet boats hold about 12 people and they are essentially a giant wave runner.  They load you in wearing a poncho and a life jacket and take you full speed down this canyon that at times will maybe fit 1 1/2 of these boats wide.  The captain of this boat came within inches from hitting these sheer rock walls and then followed that by twirling his finger in the air to tell us to hold on for the 360 degree flip he's about to do.  I would recommend it to anyone traveling here to give that a go.  I didn't get to bungee jump, but on our way back through, I'm hoping to knock that one off the bucket list.

Overall, Queenstown was a blast.  It definitely dug a hole in the wallet a bit, but I don't regret any of it.  I can always catch up on sleep later.  I can't always party like an asshole in Queenstown.  You only live once, right?

I have to say, though, it did feel pretty nice getting back into the countryside and fall asleep under the stars on my sleeping pad as opposed to a mattress.  What made it better was ending our first day back on the water with the rod bent with a beautiful 4.5lb brown.  It kept our group's "no skunk" streak alive just a shade before dark.  Let's hope I didn't jinx it.  Who's got some wood I can knock on?