Fishing at Last

About three weeks ago, a lovely lady we've met here at Fairway Bay Marina invited us out on her yacht for a day's fishing. How could we say anything but, "Yes, please!"

The next fine day, we were off ...

Our friend Sue lives on her yacht with Oscar, her best buddy—that's him sitting right beside her. 

We had a fabulous day. There was hardly any wind, so we didn't do any 'sailing' as such. I think Sue chose a really calm day in case we were poor sailors.

Fish! A lot of the ones we caught were too small and had to be thrown back, but we managed to get some edible sizes as well.

And then there was this shag. It tried to catch the fish as we were pulling them up, and if we threw one back, we had to make sure it was on the other side of the yacht, or Mr Shag here would eat it for lunch! Yes, he got the first one before we caught on to his cunning plan. 

When we tried to move on, he followed. A persistent pest.

Here's Oscar teaching Dave how to steer the yacht.

Looking back towards Gulf Harbour.

Oscar would go nuts whenever someone caught a fish ... so excited, barking and snapping at the fish. He was really quite funny ... but Sue banished him to below deck for a while.

Our sea dog ... Lucy's first time out on the water. She was fine, as long as we didn't get out of sight.

The final tally: one tarahiki and about four snapper. Enough for a few meals.

Back in the marina ... this is the lovely Stella Maris that we went on.

Thanks, Sue, for a memorable day!

The following day I was very unwell and went from bad to worse over the following days. I must have picked up a bug. As I'm typing this, I've just yesterday finished my antibiotics and still not 100%. It's been a long struggle with some sort of chest infection, but now I'm improving slowly each day. Hence such a long time between this fishing day and getting the photos on here to show you. We're planning another trip ... hopefully next week, or before we know it, Christmas will be here! 

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Twizel

Just south of Twizel we stayed on the banks of the Ohau B Canal. Across the water is the High Country Salmon farm. There was a steady stream of visitors throughout the day.

Looking to the right, across the road, more places where they farm salmon.

Although some of the nights were chilly, the weather while we were here was glorious. All of the photos in this post were taken from within walking distance of our rig.

The view from my office window :)

The sun set the clouds on fire last night.

Today we walked across to check out the salmon farm. It was incredibly busy, although we thought we'd chosen a quiet spell. You can feed the fish for free in this area here.

Looking out over the railing towards where the rig is parked up on the other side of the canal. The colour of the water is amazing.

These ducks look almost fake. They're so close and so still on the azure water. This is the NZ scaup. Also known as the black teal, the scaup are NZ's smallest ducks and only true diving ducks. We watched them dive under the water—as they surfaced, the water beaded and just rolled off them. You'd not know they'd been underwater just seconds before. Hence, no doubt, the saying, "like water off a duck's back"!

And the more common mallard ducks. There were a few of these around too, all hoping for some leftovers from the salmon feeding. Signs instructed people NOT to feed the ducks and the trout. Not that we could see any trout out in the canal! They're supposedly there though, and a lot of fishermen were trying to catch them, but we only saw one person catch a trout and that was too small to keep.

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Waihao Box

Waihao Box is located east of Waimate, at the mouth of the Waihao River. There's a camping spot here where we stayed for a couple of nights.

You can see there's been a significant amount of rain in the previous few days.

There is no sand on the beach. Instead, large flat stones stretching into the distance . . .

. . . in both directions. It was like standing on a dune of shingle.

Nearby, the river mouth. On this side, a flock of terns sitting on the stones, and on the far side, you can see shags.

Lucy didn't enjoy the stones. They were probably not that easy for her to walk on.

Here she is—waiting for me to come back.

On the first night, she found a friend—Mix. Mix loves to retrieve sticks and is very much at home in the water. This is about as deep as Lucy will go. She waited for Mix to bring the stick back in, but then she wouldn't let her bring it any further!

This is Mix's owner, Dave, on the right talking with Herman, another camper who arrived shortly after we did. Dave stays permanently in a caravan on a neighbouring farm. An interesting man—we enjoyed hearing about his life and the area.

There were a lot of shags around, and most of them weren't that frightened of us. Dave told us many of the juvenile shags were rather lethargic and had been dying, but he wasn't sure why.

A signs tells how the box was built in 1910, replacing a previous one built in 1896 about 2 kms further north. There is no permanent river mouth for the Waihao catchment. The box structure prevents the shingle barrier completely blocking the Waihao River, thus assisting with drainage and reducing the risk of flooding.

"Water can flow through the box, but what is especially ingenious about it is that the north-facing side of the box is open so that when flows are especially heavy, pressure builds up in the box so that water is then forced out the open side thus speeding up erosion of the gravels alongside it. These then scour away creating a channel from the lagoon to the sea. There's a 'nose' at the sea-side end that helps prevent the sea washing into the box (and thus stopping river water flowing out).

"It is believed that the Waihao Box is the only functioning one of its kind in New Zealand and possibly in the world. There were once two on Saltwater Creek near Timaru (one of which was still working until the 1970s) and one on Horseshoe Bend Creek (also in the Waimate District). Further afield there was thought to have once been a box on Lake Ellesmere near Christchurch and possibly two somewhere in the North Island."
(Source: http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/AK1011/S00623/the-waihao-box-celebrates-centenary.htm - you can read more at this link.)

Where the river goes out to the sea (and Dave fishing).

Views of the box. Much of it is covered in shingle.

There are warnings about how the shingle moves and can be dangerous. 

This shingle on the far side of the river mouth was falling away into the sea as I took this photo. Notice where the stones are slightly darker (freshly exposed to the sun, wet with water running through them). Although the shags appear unconcerned, I doubt it would be a good place to be standing for too much longer!

A monument was erected in 2010 to commemorate 100 years since the Box was built.

And a sombre reminder of how dangerous the moving gravel can be.

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