The Diamond Creek Affair

While we were staged at Glenorchy waiting to go up the Greenstone, I decided to fish Diamond Creek and Reid Lake. There is a car park at the bridge. It is a 45 minute walk to Reid Lake.

At many of the lakes it's possible to walk the shoreline looking for Brown trout. The trout cruise the shallows back and forth along the lake shore and you wait to ambush them. As usual, the wind was blowing, and I only managed to jerk the fly out of one trout's mouth. Other than that...nothing. 

While walking Diamond Creek on the way back, there were large trout laying about. But these fish get fished over so many times, they just laugh at your pathetic efforts. One said "Don't waste my time, fisher-boy".

Whenever we get out of the car and there is a hike involved, or a possibility of wading, Cynthia puts the car key in her day pack. When we got back to the car, she tried opening the car door. "There's something wrong with the key" she said. I took a look at the key and told her "that's because you're using the motel room key". The second I said that, I got this sick feeling in my stomach. You see, the car key and the room key had exactly the same key fob. Can you guess which one I locked in the car for safe keeping? You think I felt stupid last time? I swore in languages I don't even speak.

We contemplated our options. Let's just say that Glenorchy is probably 1/20th the size of Bluff, and QT is 86k away. I looked for tools. The only thing I had was a pocket knife and the forceps from my fishing stuff. Neither of which would do much in terms of prying open the door. I decided that the only option was to smash a window.

I chose the smallest (and I assumed cheapest) window, and picked up a rock about the size of a softball and hurled it with a mighty roar. It bounced off the window, and made a bang like I just hit the side of the car. I looked and all it did was to nick the glass a little. I tried again with the same result. I was dumbfounded. I thought maybe this car had once belonged to the Prime Minister or the Pope, or someone else people want to shoot. I thought maybe the Universe was trying to tell me something.

Then I noticed the sunroof. If I stuck my forceps in the crack, I could pry it open about 3/8". The game was afoot! I hunted around on a farmer's fence for a piece of stiff wire he didn't need, or wouldn't notice was gone. I managed to break off a piece and bend a hook on the end of it. I tried for an hour to get it to hook the little tab in the door handle but the angle was all wrong and all it did was slip off. Now that I had a piece of wire I was inspired to try the door.

I found that if I pried real hard with my forceps on the top of the door, I could open a crack about 1/8". I tried whittling some wooden wedges and pounding them in with a rock. No good; all they did was crush. I needed a pry bar. The tire iron would work perfectly if it wasn't locked up in the car.

There was a bridge near by so I walked over there thinking that maybe there might be a chunk of steel laying around. No luck there. I noticed an old shack in the woods and I bushwhacked my way over. In the junk pile there was an old steel handled rake with about four tines left on it. I had my pry bar. I stuck the tines in the door crack, gave a pry and stuck the wire in. We didn't have to walk after all.

Diamond Creek

 Reid Lake