Fishy Mojdeh (?)

We left Auckland as soon as we could. Hearing that South Auckland is the sketchier part of town, we decided to take a bus and avoid the hitching for a bit. We skipped Rotorua and went straight to Lake Taupo. I have heard of this town because this is where they hold Ironman New Zealand in March. Their half IM is coming up in December. There is a also a 160 km bike race next week. Every Monday there is a small and casual duathlon. Quite an athletic town.We stayed in town the first night until we heard about a free campsite about an hour walk outside of town.

 It started pouring rain when we set off for our free campsite.

Eventually, the weather cleared and it has been more like summer every day. The nights are chilly. Our free campsite is right next to a river. There is a natural hot spring not far from our camp. We took advantage of that!

Here I am getting water at night out of the river.

After a couple of nights we booked a half day fly fishing guide. We set out on the Waitahanui River in the afternoon (after Mojdeh's bday) kind of groggy. We quickly woke up to the biggest trout that we have ever seen. 

Our guide "Fishy Steve" turned out to be much more fun than we ever could have hoped.  He helped us land some amazing Rainbow Trout. He then took pity on us and invited the backpackers back to his place for a hot shower and a fantastic home cooked meal.

I know this will make some people jealous!

 

The next day, we couldn't help but go out fishing for a full day with Steve. He got us into some great fish. The scenery was breathtaking, but we refused to stop focusing on the fish. It paid off!

This is my biggest fish of the trip... so far. We bought a fly fishing rod and we are going to put it to the test tomorrow.

 

Thanks to "Fishy Steve" for a great time! Check out www.fishysteve.com to see his cool web site.