Family Vacation, continued

That's my first brown trout.

We returned from Tahiti sunburned and happy, with two days to prepare for our next trip. Having my entire family in town was quite a treat as we were able to show them all the things we loved about Wellington.

My parents took the kids for a walk through the botanical gardens and came back raving about the rose garden (which had reached full bloom while we were away). Amy and I had a look for ourselves and were equally impressed:


After a few days in Welly, we all flew to the South Island and drove a few hours to the tiny town of St. Arnaud's (pop. 155). This town is situated at the tip of lake Rotoiti in the Nelson lakes national park. This is a fairly remote area and it's chock full of beautiful mountains and rivers.

A word about those rivers; just about every river in the area has world-class trout fishing. The plan was for Dad and my brothers to go fishing with a local guide while Amy and I took off on a brief tramp (of the rare, kids-free variety).

Amy and I climbed Mt. Roberts, which overlooks St. Arnaud's and lake Rotoiti. Guess what? It was beautiful. (Aside: everything here is beautiful. I've run out of synonyms for "beautiful" by this point in the blog. If you can think of any useful ways to describe something as pretty, please email me.) Here are some pics:

Lake Rotoiti, from about halfway up Mt. Roberts. That boat is heading towards St. Arnaud's. The gentle slope on the right is the result of glaciers which were here a (long) while back.

We camped that night in one of the local tramping huts. These are well maintained cabins which can be found throughout the backcountry along major trails. We had some nice views from the top until the clouds rolled in that evening:
Above: The view of the lake from the hut.

The Bushline hut, so named because it's situated right at the bushline. This is what it looked like that evening when the clouds rolled in.

We returned after our getaway to find that the kids had been having quite a good time with Getch and Grandad:


And now, on to the fishing.

I've heard quite a few well-traveled fly fisherman opine that New Zealand is home to the best trout fishing in the world. The fishing itself can be pretty tough because the water is so clear that you have to spot the fish before they spot you, then sneak up on them without spooking them. If you actually manage to hook one, then you're in a different kind of trouble because every fish you see is so damn huge that they'll snap the line in a heartbeat. How big are they? Kraemer (who's done a lot of fly fishing) says that a trophy brown back in the States is anything over about 20 inches long, weighing in at 5 pounds or more. People fish their whole lives and never land trout this big.

Kraemer and I hooked 7 fish, landing 4 on our day together and the smallest one we caught weighed at least 6 pounds. It was pretty ridiculous to see that many huge fish and we had one hell of a good time.


Above: Kraemer fights another beauty. If you look closely, you can see the fish.

Kraemer landed this one about 5 minutes after we got to the river.

Warning: the next section gets a bit graphic. It's probably worth reading, unless you're squeamish.

In the course of the few days we were there, we spent a lot of time in the company of the locals, including our guide. They informed us that if we really wanted to get in on some good fishing then we should come back next year, during the mouse plague.

"The what?" we asked.

"The mouse plague, eh. See, the local beech trees flower every 5 or six years, and they drop millions of small seeds. The mice go nuts, and breed like,...well, mice, and pretty soon you've got a full-blown plague. You'll see them gathered in the road at night."

Us: "As in, hundreds of them in the road at once?"

Them: "Try tens of thousands; you'll see a solid sheet of mice when you drive around the corner. They're everywhere. They fall into the rivers and lakes and the trout go nuts. They gorge themselves like you wouldn't believe. Six pound trout turn into ten pound trout in a few weeks. When you pick them up, they barf and shit mice at the same time. You can see the lumps in the fish because they're so full. Hell, the fish even get hemorrhoids from crapping so many mice. It's pretty brilliant, eh?"

Amy did not think this was brilliant and she made it quite clear that she wouldn't be joining us during the mouse plague years.

Up next: I wasn't able to cover sandflies this time, so we'll touch on that subject later. Also, Christmas in summertime.