New Zealand New Year's Day ~ Fishing Mataura River & Roaming Queenstown 01Jan23

We had a free morning so we enjoyed berries and pod espresso machine coffees in the room as I tried and failed at watching NCAA football. The situation is that ESPN & Hulu don't allow anonymous VPN addresses so even though I bought a Denver IP address they would not enable a stream without geo-location turned "on." Grrr... looked like amazing college football today from the box scores. Instead I fished the Mataura solo with Kala engaging some cows. I learned of the spot from a chain sporting goods store fisherman close to our lodging. It led us along the Lake Wakatipu from Queenstown to the effluent stream. There's apparently some strict etiquette fishing in NZ where you fish the "beat" at which start headed upstream ~ you do not hike downstream and fish back to your car. A signpost so said, but I get it ~ the fish biomass here is much lower than in CO; what is here is big but there are not many fish, and there is precious little bug sign. On my "beat" today I saw no fish in crystal water and caught up to the next guy in 90 min so headed back down. Sheep were my guide and none were too good; Kala read of Osage Murders with curious cows along the river.

With fishing and cow curious just "meh" we headed back to QT for some rambling about the town. I re-asserted the vibe was like Summit, while Kala said Vail, and the nice residences we see are $1M NZD. We parked (nigh impossible here) near the landing field for the paragliders and then went to our adventure station to assure we knew where to meet our jet boat tomorrow... yeah every imaginable was in the concourse ~ boats, choppers, jets, subs, fishing, flying, skydiving, bungie jumping, whatev... weird. We are nearly the oldest in the 'hood... and will board our jet boat for the river tomorrow righteously. We tried to buy something but could not find "it." We headed to a beer tap haunt for locals... Atlas, on the wharf. Good edamame and tacos and good beers in a stellar vibe. We did have to navigate many "tourists" boarding tugboats on our ways back to the car.

We stole out of Atlas for a Kiwi statue pic and then to the (relatively empty) Queenstown Gardens for a walk on the lake through the park... awesome. We learned they planted American Sequoia and have an alcohol ban this week ~ aka, no public drunkenness or carry. We passed a boule event at the QT Bowling palace and enjoyed the skill of these "average" players ~ and look forward to a match at Alan's club in CCH.