Oamaru - Queenstown
After leaving Oamaru we headed cross country up the Waikato Valley. The Waikato river has been utilised for Hydro Power and has various impressive dams built along it. The most impressive being the Benmore Lake dam. Very impressive and supplies a fair amount of power too.
We travelled on to Omarama and our next hostel, Buscot Station. What a lovely place, a cracking location on a Merino Sheep farm and a cracking host in Tony Gloag. The Gloag name originating from Crieff/Muthil of all places. He showed us photos of his trip there in 1999.
The view out across the flat valley floor towards the southern alps was worth the money alone. Well more than the money actually. This is fishing country so I bought my new rod and a license for the year and some flies selected by the tackle shop proprietor. That was all I needed having taken my own real and line from Scotland.
We had a go in the nearby stream and after spying a few monster trout we had fished the river out and headed for the real thing.
The Ahuriri River is world renowned for it's big trout. We had a few casts that evening but to no avail.
The next day we headed up to the upper reaches, 20km along a gravel road up into what looked like Lord of the Rings country. The cloud tipped mountains at the top of the valley still had a good covering of snow.
Anyway the crystal clear water means you can spot your fish before you attempt to catch them. And spot them we did. Bigger than any trout we'd spotted before in our lives.
We fished up the river for about 3 miles then Jamie fished back down to the car and I fished on up.
A lot of the little sections of river which had split from the main section seemed to hold fish and soon after leaving Jamie I found such a spot. In no more than 8 inches of water at the back of a small creek around 3ft wide lay a lovely looking trout. The next trick was not to let it see me. After many many casts and fly changes I was lying on my front in the long grass only a few feet from the target with the rod out infront of me dangling a fly about 18 inches from the tip of the rod. I lowered it down right infront of the fish and after about 3 seconds it was solid, I struck the fly and stood up and it was on. After a pretty short struggle it was in my hands. Quite small by Ahuriri standards at around 4 1/2 lbs but by far my biggest ever brown trout. Getting the fly out was a nightmare though as it was right in behind the lower teeth and it would have easily cut my skin if it had bit down in my finger.
The rest of the day was pretty inconsequential really.
Today we travelled from Omarama to Queenstown. We picked up a hitchhiker just outside Cromwell (60km from Queenstown) he turned out to be a complete psycho and we had to leave him in a lay by.
No we didn't he was a top Kiwi called Ben. He was going to Queenstown from Dunedin to pick up a camper van.
Anyway we're in Queenstown now and there is oodles and oodles on offer. It's not too busy yet either. On the agenda are the Gondola, Jetboat, Steamer Cruise, fishing ofcourse and maybe a bungy. We'll see.
Photos will follow very soon hopefully.
Cheers for now.
We travelled on to Omarama and our next hostel, Buscot Station. What a lovely place, a cracking location on a Merino Sheep farm and a cracking host in Tony Gloag. The Gloag name originating from Crieff/Muthil of all places. He showed us photos of his trip there in 1999.
The view out across the flat valley floor towards the southern alps was worth the money alone. Well more than the money actually. This is fishing country so I bought my new rod and a license for the year and some flies selected by the tackle shop proprietor. That was all I needed having taken my own real and line from Scotland.
We had a go in the nearby stream and after spying a few monster trout we had fished the river out and headed for the real thing.
The Ahuriri River is world renowned for it's big trout. We had a few casts that evening but to no avail.
The next day we headed up to the upper reaches, 20km along a gravel road up into what looked like Lord of the Rings country. The cloud tipped mountains at the top of the valley still had a good covering of snow.
Anyway the crystal clear water means you can spot your fish before you attempt to catch them. And spot them we did. Bigger than any trout we'd spotted before in our lives.
We fished up the river for about 3 miles then Jamie fished back down to the car and I fished on up.
A lot of the little sections of river which had split from the main section seemed to hold fish and soon after leaving Jamie I found such a spot. In no more than 8 inches of water at the back of a small creek around 3ft wide lay a lovely looking trout. The next trick was not to let it see me. After many many casts and fly changes I was lying on my front in the long grass only a few feet from the target with the rod out infront of me dangling a fly about 18 inches from the tip of the rod. I lowered it down right infront of the fish and after about 3 seconds it was solid, I struck the fly and stood up and it was on. After a pretty short struggle it was in my hands. Quite small by Ahuriri standards at around 4 1/2 lbs but by far my biggest ever brown trout. Getting the fly out was a nightmare though as it was right in behind the lower teeth and it would have easily cut my skin if it had bit down in my finger.
The rest of the day was pretty inconsequential really.
Today we travelled from Omarama to Queenstown. We picked up a hitchhiker just outside Cromwell (60km from Queenstown) he turned out to be a complete psycho and we had to leave him in a lay by.
No we didn't he was a top Kiwi called Ben. He was going to Queenstown from Dunedin to pick up a camper van.
Anyway we're in Queenstown now and there is oodles and oodles on offer. It's not too busy yet either. On the agenda are the Gondola, Jetboat, Steamer Cruise, fishing ofcourse and maybe a bungy. We'll see.
Photos will follow very soon hopefully.
Cheers for now.
posted by PeterZ at 7:52 PM
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