"I could have sworn it was night time..."

Up until two days ago, I could honestly say that I had never hit an animal in a car. Today, I can now say that I brutally killed an innocent New Zealand duck. I was driving late at night after a long day on the river with the boys and this duck appeared out of nowhere. In my defense, this duck made no effort to fly away or escape his death and I can only assume his wings were working, so perhaps it was a suicide? Thats what I tell myself at night when the quacks haunt me. It didn't help that shortly after I killed him, P. Diddy's "I'll be missing you" came on Drew's ipod. Talk about kicking you when you're down.


Anyways, let me flashback to a day or so before this happened....

Friday night I drove to the Christchurch Airport to pick up Les, Drew, and Zach. For those of you who don't know... they are all 4UR Ranch boys that I met this past summer who are here in NZ for a 3 month long fly fishing trip. Their flight got in around midnight so I responsibly left the house around 11pm or so incase they got in early. BIG MISTAKE. 

The flight landed on time and as soon as I saw on the arrival screen that they had landed, I got up and stood right by the gate, ready to greet my favorite ranch boys with open arms. I stood there for 2 hours and creepily watched every other passenger off every flight greet their loved ones but my friends were nowhere in sight. Finally, an Australian flight attendant came up to me and asked, "Are you waiting for three American boys?" Once I heard that question, I knew that I wouldn't be leaving that airport anytime soon.

Turned out, their fly-fishing rods were lost in transit. To put this feeling into perspective of someone who has never come across an avid fly fisherman, finding this out would be equivalent to losing your child. Knowing how much they dream about trout, I was nervous about greeting three grumpy, jet-lagged boys. Luckily, they were so damn happy to be off of that plane and excited about finally being here that they were in good spirits when they finally walked over that international line, legally bringing them into the land of the long white cloud. Maybe they were over tired or loopy from  all the traveling,  but I give them serious credit for staying so calm. 

I'm not so sure I believe in karma, but their optimism led them to the rods to show up on the doorstep just two days later. After finding the missing rods, we toasted with some cheap red wine to the beginning of their fishing adventure and the next day headed up towards Arthur's Pass to fish the Broken River.

Arthur's Pass never ceases to amaze me. It really is one of the most beautiful drives you will ever come across. I drove our little Toyota Vitz through those windy roads and despite some trouble accelerating uphill, I was impressed at how smooth the drive went. That was until we got to the 10 mile dirt road that would lead us to the Broken river. Now, I don't know if any of you are familiar with a Toyota Vitz, but you would not likely to see it off-roading in a TV ad. 10 miles (20 some-odd kilometers), 2 hours, and a lot of nervous passengers later, the Vitz made it across the rocky terrain to the river. The boys had a great first trip--reeling in about 20 New Zealand rainbows. It was exciting for Hannah and I to just watch them do what they do and now that Les got me a rod for Christmas, hopefully I will catch some trout of my own once we start heading South.

The rest of this week has consisted of getting the boys settled with bank accounts, a car and introducing them to our Christchurch friends but within the next few days, we will be parting ways. They will be heading North and we will be heading down South towards Dunedin and slowly making our way over to Queenstown and the West Coast over the next two months. Luckily, this country is pretty tiny so I'm sure we will see them a few times again on our trip. 


Until next time...