Down the East Cape - Whitebait - Rugby

December 12, 2011

Down the East Cape - Whitebait - Rugby - Moonlit beach walks

Day 6 Sunday, November 6^th.

Took a long walk along the beach in the morning. Donna visited with a lady fishing for whitebait. Whitebaiting is especially big on the west coast of the South Island from September to mid November, but the little critters are on the North Island too, so we are here near the end of the whitebait season. This is the scoop about whitebait from our friends at Lonely Planet. “White bait are the immature stages of inanga (river smelt). Catches in recent years have been lower than normal, and in 2007 prices for the wee beasties reached $150 per kilogram. With some whitebaiters securing up to 15 kg per day, it can be a lucrative business. The experienced old timers are usually happy to make enough for beer money and pay for their riverside crib (cottage) or caravan for a few more weeks.” (Note to my good friend George, who just retired in Bemidji, MN – you may want to think about this George as an income enhancer – maybe you could make enough to pay for your airfare. )

Checked the Lonely Planet guidebook one more time before heading out. We are enjoying the coast so much, that we decide to keep going south along the east coast, and postpone our trip to Mordor for a few days. The drive down the east cape is indeed beautiful, although these roads are very tiring to drive on for any length of time. They are by far the windiest roads I have ever driven on – but near as I can see there are very few flat spots in NZ, a very hilly and mountainous country – so the windy roads are the price to be paid for the spectacular scenery. We gassed up for the first time outside of Whakatane. The young man who pumped our gas was excited to hear that we were from Colorado, because he went to Colorado with his Dad in 2009. He loved Colorado and played a rugby game in Aspen on July 4^th. Rugby is the national sport, and they are very passionate about their team, the All Blacks, who just won the world championship, which was held in NZ just before we arrived. “Go All Blacks” signs are all over the place. Donna looked for a Black Flags flag in several places, finally securing one in Greymouth (much later in the trip - hang in there we'll get there - but sadly we inadvertently left it in our camper van at the very end of the trip - so we'll just have to go back to buy another one - always looking for excuses to return!

We had another nice lunch along the coast and stopped for picture taking along the way, and eventually made it to a beach that is 7 km off the main road – Anaura Beach – the site of Captain Cook’s second landing on NZ. This is another beautiful spot, and another place I’d linger on a return trip. A very basic DOC campsite, that was deserted (just us, and you guessed it a young German couple in a campervan). Another late and long (1.5 hours) evening walk along the beach, this time so late that we walked most of it by moonlight. (It’s rough duty, but someone has to do it!)