After our strenuous walk up Mt Isthmus we headed to the nearby lake of Hawea. Here was another beautiful forest campsite, with the lake in view from our camp spot. The next couple of days were spent relaxing, enjoying the sun, and most importantly fishing. An attempt to add to my current grand total of two.
Sophia spent the best part of one whole day washing our clothes - long over due and trying to dry them was a pain. It was not so much fun for her!
My fishing luck seemed to continue, although it was a little dramatic. I headed down to a good location I picked earlier in the day, and with the sun setting behind the mountains, I started casting with my favourite luer Toni gave me and the same one that brought me my first fish. After about one hour I felt a massive tug on the line and saw a trout jumping around close to the shore. I sparked into action and grabbed the 15" brown trout - it was twice the size of my previously catch and I knew Sophia would be impressed! I was ecstatic! After RIP'ing the poor bugger, I continued to fish hoping to double my tally, but by this time it was getting dark and the sun had well and truly set.
Then my luer got stuck. This annoyed me as it was all going so well and however hard I pulled it wouldn't come loose from a boulder several meters into the freezing cold lake. Then a brain wave. I figured I could cut the line, tie it to a rock, and if I tied the middle part of the line to my rod, I could throw the rock, freeing the luer and then reel in the other end with the luer still attached using my rod. The worse that could happen is not retrieve my luer - or so I thought. The whole process just deteriorated and with one final tug I snapped my rod in two. I smirked. But really wanted to cry.
With that I returned to the camper-van battle scarred with a fish, but no rod or luer..... At this rate it would be cheaper to go out and buy the fish!
Anyhow the manager of the campsite promised he would smoke us the fish if we caught one and we took him up on his idea. He showed us how to butterfly the fish, rubbed salt on one side and brown sugar on the other and put it in the over to smoke it over manuka tree dust. It took 20 minutes to cook and tasted magical... Thanks Mike!
We had a great time at lake Hawea and headed off to the glaciers... Another adventure to come!
