Nelson

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During our major strategy and trip planning sessions, which usually take place just before I turn the ignition key, we decided that our route on the South Island should be down the west coast first, then across the mountains to the east.

There are huge areas of this country that are simply inaccessible. There are no roads at all. The southwest of New Zealand is called Fiordlands. It is part of what’s known as a “World Heritage Site". These are areas set aside by the UN, with the host country’s consent, that can never be developed but must remain as they have always been.

Remember way back at the beginning when we told you about our wonderful flight over? How since we were stranded by United we got to spend the night in LA? As we said, we met several kiwis who told us to stop in when we passed through. Neil and Sue McCliskie own a large apple orchard just west of Nelson. Since we were heading west, we wanted to stop by and say “Hi”, and maybe have a bit of lunch. On our flight, Neil had also mentioned that they had friends who own a 50,000 acre sheep station in the high plains of Canterbury near Lake Heron, and it has prime fly fishing waters on it. ESPN rates this area as “One of the ten places fly fishermen need to go before they die”, and he would put us in touch with these friends. That was another reason for the stop.

The funny thing about Kiwis though (those outside of the tourist trade) is that “a bit of lunch” turned into a chauffeured tour of the region, afternoon wine tastings at several different wineries, dinner and a room for the night.

One of the things that we hadn’t foreseen when planning our trip was the problem of having all of our belongings in the car. This meant that we can’t just park along some river and fish, or park at a trailhead to hike. Neil and Sue also offered to store our things and use their home as a base of operations for seeing the local area. Unfortunately, the weather forecast for the next several days turned to crap. By crap I mean 300mm of rain in 24 hours, and 130 kph winds.

They also put me on the phone with one of their friends who had been a professional fishing guide, so I could pick his brain about local rivers. This total stranger spent about 45 minutes on the phone with me, and then called back later that afternoon with detailed directions and fishing instructions for several rivers along our route west. Unfortunately, the weather was going to put a damper on those plans.

We headed out of the area westward (with two $50 bottles of unbelievable wine thrust into our hands by our hosts, www.neudorf.co.nz) with the intention of turning south before the coast and heading over the hills to the east (dry) side of the island and do the wet coast (not a typo) on the way back. But as we headed out, we got out of the rain in about 45 minutes, and the rivers looked good. They had darkened just slightly, but that was a good thing, because they had been too clear before. We started to re-think our plan.