Off to Te Anau

Hi Everybody!

Karen and I are in Te Anau! Today we drove almost 700 km from Hokitika. It was an amazing drive by way of Queenstown. We even had time to stop and fish a beautiful stream called the  that contained trophy rainbows. The drive included two mountain passes, many changes in climate, vegetation and scenery. Yes we passed some of the Lord of the Rings locations, Laurie. We are close to Milford Sound. We hope to do some fly fishing in the next few days and take in Milford Sound. Our friends Barry and Sheila reminded us to take the later ferry to enjoy the sunset. That is in the works in the next few days.

The last few days have been spent fly fishing on spring creeks. The fishing has been very interesting. On one spring creek I had "down stream takes" twice within 10 minutes and had nothing to show. I knew what to do but it's hard not to get too excited and set the hook too soon. Darn!

We even took in a movie, "Social Network" in Hokitika in a theatre that had an amazing sound system that was slightly out of adjustment which made listening difficult. Oh yes, there were 8 patrons in the theatre. After the theatre experience we took a walk in the dark to see the glow worms. They look like LED lights against the rock and foliage. Pretty cool stuff.

One of our cameras took a swim in one creek and we hope it will dry out enough to be useful although we do have a spare. Thank goodness!!


This is beautiful Lake Wanaka. As we drove today, the scenery was spectacular. We thought of Penticton as we drove along this section.

 We had many corners like this one where the speed limit is 15 kmh. They mean it!

Here we go again. You can see the pitch of the road and the corner that is coming up next.

We stopped for lunch and decided to throw a line in as we took a break. Bob caught this nice rainbow.


Here is another beautiful brown from a few days ago on a pretty spring creek. We crashed some bush to get this one. Take a look at the water behind Bob. Yes, it is that clear!

Once again Karen has friends with her as she fishes. These guys kept us company and walked the fence line as far as they could go just to see what the heck we were up to in their creek.