New Zealand Christchurch Chill & College Championship Then A "Final" Family Gathering 10Jan23

We chilled @ Ken's in the AM while he did code reviews and wrote & submitted his last few tickets of the current sprint. He's still a big contributor to the app he helped pioneer, Finding Rover, an app for finding lost dogs, which he wrote and then helped sell to Pet Smart. He never wrote great code in a rush... so they even still need him to interpret what he did. ;) At 1:30pm CCH time on Jan 10th we hit Dux, kindof of a sports bar, meeting up with Cole (dad to Curtis & Chelsea, no pics). Continuous keen street art on the walk over. This place was one of the only spots in a town of 400K carrying ESPN, and willing to display, the US college natl championship! We were the only 4 at our table with a private screen for the affair. Disaster matchup in the CFB championship however - who took the under? - a couple of hazies and we were "out," as were the horned frogs. We headed over to a concept hall of many restaurants and enjoyed meeting Curtis's lady Tyler and Chelsea's mate Kyle. Great kids. We were fortunate to be able to acquire a beautiful hand-turned kauri bowl from Kyle, an engineer with a wood-turning artisan flair. Recall kauri is the dense, astoundingly huge, endangered (he used downed wood), legendary tree of New Zealand. We were fortunate to hike to a 12 meter diameter one on our first day in NZ. So cool... on the inbound and on the outbound (recognize that dates in Kiwi are d/m/y).

We're headed home tomorrow... landing before we takeoff... looking for snow storms... see ya southern hemisphere... New Zealand is very cool and other-wordly.

New Zealand Castle Hill, Sheffield Pie And 5th Street Restaurant Team Rager 09Jan23

We briefly gave Ken a bit of a rest from hosting us and drove out to Castle Hill Natl Pk west of Christchurch. This was a strange set of rock outcroppings nearish the base of the Southern Alps at this latitude. We had a nice hike through the area. We observed a Maori carving/symbol representing this gathering area and of the giant eagle pouakai, long extinct. This giant eagle once was the largest eagle in the world. The hike back to the car also captured views across the valley of another impressive, rock covered mountain range.

As we headed back to Christchurch for a nice dinner outing with our hosts we passed through Sheffield where the "world famous in New Zealand" Sheffield Pie shop is located. We stopped and enjoyed an unusual Camembert/apricot/chicken pie (we still sense the standard steak & cheese is better). I heard the funny world famous phrase a number of times on this trip.

We primped and headed back out for an evening with Gill & Alan at the excellent 5th Street restaurant. Killer food was accompanied by beers and some fine NZ Hawke's Bay reds. On the way Ken parsed an app on his phone to ultimately get some of the street art in CCH to interact ~ so he said.

The debauchery continued when we found live music on the way home. Ken & Alan explained to expect little but I'd found precious little live music on our trip around New Zealand. Yet, we were granted some great performances from nearly the front row with hardly anyone in the house. Even the house sound was pretty good from our spot. We found out later that we were at a wake and that a local musician friend of this night's performers had died. Bummer... but the beers and bands were good. There were three main bands with the first two also playing a song with stand-in friends. Band #1 was just plain good. Band #2 kicked out some keen SKA; with the stand-in they played Jethro Tull. Band #3 leader was the dead musician's closest friend. We were very lucky and NZ was on the map for me as to live tunes.

We stayed all night without regret ~ but for any early rising on the next day.

New Zealand Akaroa With Cameron 08Jan23

Ken enlisted Cameron, one of Ken's "brother's" kids ~ so his "nephew," to guide us around Akaroa - the volcanic peninsula across from Christchurch. It was a great outing, and I didn't even need to drive. Cameron is a 20 year old NZ Army officer in training, all military in NZ are just 6000 strong and deal mostly with natural disasters, though do come to aid allies in critical situations. We took Cameron's Skoda wagon (nice Audi-like one) all around. We took in vistas then stopped at a cafe at the pass. It had a weird flowering bush; we all had chips (fries) and lemon-lime-bitters seltzers ~ that's a go to drink in NZ during summer.

Moving on along to Akaroa the ridge line way we ultimately made it to town after some more stops. We ate lunch at the Bully Hayes Tavern and observed the harbor and a sailing race taking place on the weekend.

After lunch Cameron took us past his grandmother's place. While she's moved to a more convenient location in Christchurch, Cameron spent many a day out here and always relayed relevant quips. The Skoda made it's way all the way out Lighthouse (dirt) Road to the Head of Akaroa... we clamored further down a trail and out above a 2000 ft cliff above the sea. It was very cool and probably not all that intelligent.

 

Once recovering from the cliff spot we headed back via an alternative back road and caught many more vistas of Akaroa itself and the entire countryside. We stopped at the site of a British statue commemorating development of the area, and a Maori site memorializing a massacre at the hand of the Brits. Finally out here we were obliged to get the "Cameron's Track" selfie.

Once back nearer Christchurch we hit Fuse, a top purveyor of one of the keen tastes of NZ in the summer: real fruit ice cream. This concoction is prepared in real time by combining real fruit (often fresh), pulverized and mixed with soft serve ice cream... yummy.

It was a gr8 day with Cameron & Ken... good luck with the military mate.

New Zealand Kaiser & Bar Yoku 07Jan23

We laid a smidge low till late afternoon, with the prior night filled with debauchery. Nonetheless we headed our to some new breweries but most were closed, except for Kaiser. We began there and engaged our snarky waiter Taylor. He was encouraging named reviews and he earned "so right at being so wrong" from us. We moved downstairs to Brewers' Collective before hitting nearby for excellent Japanese food @ Bar Yuko.

New Zealand Monster Rainbow On Tekapo Canal 06Jan23

I researched some rivers at which to potentially stop during our drive from Dunedin to Christchurch. It turns out the current world record rainbow was taken from the Hydro Project area on the east side of the Southern Aps in New Zealand. I found the Tekapo Canals and Kala & I stopped there unguided. These were built to deliver hydroelectricity by damming some rivers and flowing canals between them. I didn't know much about what & where to fly fish around the area ~ most of the folks I saw were chunking spin rigs with big weights as the canal was pretty deep. I found and parked nearish the hydro plant ~ so fairly close to the effluent of Lake Tekapo. I rigged up the Rodfather Stripper 6wt with an olive slump buster (for weight), tungsten head red midge and trailed a #16 squishy salmon egg; my rig was 4X flouro throughout. I'd assure a decent drift by walking along the canal after a cast about 40% across. It started to rain as was getting back down to the car when I "snagged on the bottom." I realized then it was not a snag when it moved upstream and set the hook a bit harder. I got him up to shore and learned it was a ~30" rainbow as thick as my thigh, >10#! Easily the biggest rainbow I've ever hooked. There are no cutthroat in NZ so this cool red monster is pure rainbow trout. Very heartening to be unguided and run a play that worked: my own plan, my own rod, my own fly. There were Kiwis all around checking the fish and my fight ~ I did ask the old guy to help but he did not have a net ~ when he reached to grab my line I told him I'd be ok. I was in the water several times with net deployed and I had to remove my indicator from my 20' mono rig in order to even get the fish close to me ~ I was 16 minutes into the fight and could not get him on his side, and certainly not his head up, yet at this point I was downstream 150 yards with a bridge looming just below me. I couldn't get under the bridge as it was low and couldn't really swim in the area. He broke off right at the bridge and floated away under it.

We made our way to Christchurch and enjoyed a few Behemoth Juice Campbell hazies @ Salut Salut with Ken to celebrate "close but no cigar." Super tasty cheese and other appetizer plates were enjoyed there too.