The term “whitebait” doesn’t conjure up images of edible delicacies, but that’s what this tiny little fish is….to Kiwis at any rate. Their life cycle is the reverse of salmon–adults live in rivers, the eggs get swept out to sea where the babies hatch, spend a couple months as part of the plankton mass (fish fodder), then swim back up stream to grow into adults. Friday after work Jeremiah got to go out to the Waimakariri river mouth with a colleague, a seasoned white baiter, to tend his nets.

The net set-up isn’t too complicated–an arm to sweep the creatures towards the net where they can be collected. This guy has been white baiting for 40 years–I imagine the collective hours would be impressive.  If you were to buy them, they retail for $100/kilogram, so the cumulative value he’s gleaned might also be impressive.

Right, so let’s just say that Friday’s catch wasn’t all that impressive in quantity, but Milo still thought they were neat. There’s no filleting these little guys–they’re eaten heads, tails, guts and all, usually as a “fritter” held together by egg.  Jeremiah thought they were tasty.  Milo and I passed.

Milo is an unusual name in America, but it’s a household name in New Zealand thanks to their malted barley drink. We soon realized that here it was almost like naming your kid “Nestle” or “Hershey.” No one else names their child Milo, but at least people have no trouble remembering his name. Milo actually likes the drink, probably because he hasn’t been spoiled with a lot of really good hot chocolate, which in my opinion is “heaps” (another Kiwi term) better than MILO. MILO does have one advantage over hot chocolate in that it’s fortified with minerals, so it’s kind of like giving your kid a vitamin tablet as a snack.

This past weekend Jeremiah had a daddy weekend with Milo and I went with an American friend (Jen) to Mt Somers, about 2 hours south of Christchurch. We couldn’t have had better weather if we had ordered it specially. Sun-soaked, very little wind, frosty nights with perhaps 50s in the day. Amazing. The peaks around the area were decked out in fresh snow but the path was clear except in the shade.

If you look closely you can see two women laying on the rock with the spectacular mountains behind….that is Jen and me! The day was so gorgeous that we dawdled on the rocks before descending back down to the valley to the hut. We could see our destination from this shoulder, and only moved on when we noticed a number of people on the trail ahead of us and got nervous about bagging a bunk in the hut for the night. Last time Jeremiah and I were here was about a year ago, one of our first hiking trip in NZ with Milo. We huddled in the lee of a rock while eating our chilly lunch that day.  This time we should have brought sun screen.

The hut did fill up for the night, as you might expect on such a spectacular weekend this close to Christchurch. It seems to be the premier destination for families with 7-10 year-olds who rumbled around the top bunks in the early morning hours unrestrained by parental orders….but I guess next it’ll be us bringing a wailing newborn in to share the sleeping quarters, so I won’t complain. You don’t stay in a big hut if you’re looking for a quiet remote get-away, after all, and the people we met in such places have been fun and memorable characters.

We poked around in a couple nearby swimming holes, imagining if the water was warm like a hot spring, and vowed to come back in summertime. Jen particularly liked the look of this one!

Jen likes swing bridges, oddly enough since she’s pretty nervous about heights! We took the ridge trail back to the car, making a nice scenic loop through tussocklands.  One of the most amazing things about the weekend was that conversation was completely uninterrupted by a 2-year-old.  It feels novel to finish full sentences and even complete thoughts without that strident voice piping up in the middle.  I have to admit that I didn’t really miss him overnight, but I still thought about him plenty and was happy to see him when I got home. 

This past weekend we took Milo to Orana wildlife park near Christchurch. It was originally set up as a drive-through safari-type experience but is now walker-only. The expansive enclosures and dilapidated roads don’t have the feel of a congested city zoo, and the proximity to the animals is refreshingly un-American. Each day visitors can feed the giraffes handfuls of whatever seasonal treat the keepers have cut while these docile giants swing their heads back and forth looking for the next edible bouquet. Keepers gave a brief tutorial on holding the branches tightly so the giraffes can strip the leaves off, then let us at it. Milo wasn’t so keen on getting too close.

Feeding these guys was super neat. Their pre-historic-looking heads bob up and down as their lips smooch out in search of treats. Their purple tongues grasp the branches, yanking them into their mouths. And those eye lashes–wow! Strange but wonderful creatures.

These two are babies, betrothed from youth. The far one just arrived from Australia as the mail order groom, and the female was born here. Zealandia, the company I work for, has a network of trucks that run the whole of the north and south island, so my boss’s mother-in-law volunteered them to transport the new Australian arrival from Auckland (north island) to Christchurch (south island). Good thing giraffes are so docile! We had two drivers that made the trip; one from Auckland to the interisland ferry, the other from Picton to Christchurch. The baby groom just got out of quarantine and seems to have clued into the daily feeding routine quite well!

Here’s a classic New Zealand scene if there ever was one. In a country built on grazing sheep it’s not uncommon to encounter a farmer pushing his herd down the public road with the help of a truck and a couple stringy sheep dogs.  Cars give way.  I don’t know why, but sheep have a funny way of spiraling when pushed–counterclockwise, in this case, but I haven’t watched enough herds to know whether that’s always the case.

We’ve picked mussels at Okane bay on the Banks Peninsula before, but it had been nearly a year. The weather was predicted to be unseasonably fine and low tide was conveniently at noon, so we braved the car-sickening twisting roads to the remote bay and made a day of it. The green lipped mussels (romantic, eh?) are at the far end of an old wharf road that is now falling into the ocean. This is my kind of hunting–no luck or chance involved–the mussels are just waiting there on the rocks to be picked when the tide is low enough and the sea is calm enough.

I say picking mussels is my kind of hunting, but this day I actually just sat on the warm sunny rocks with Milo and watched Jeremiah get wet. Someone has to care for the kiddo…..

I introduced Milo to the love of sea snails. These things fascinate me. I love the little rock pools they inhabit with the sun-warmed water. I love picking them up to watch their door snap closed. I love laying them upside down and watching their foot and feelers ooze slowly out to grip the rock and spin their shell back above their body. Milo didn’t have a lot of patience to wait for their re-emergence, but he did enjoy finding them and throwing them back into the deeper water, or relocating them to different pools.  He asked about eating them, but I told him they were too small….maybe not strictly true, but I like snails and don’t feel the need to eat them.

These rocks were actually sharp and unforgiving, full of barnacles. Milo was an amazingly good sport about me keeping a constant hand on him.

Back at the beach Milo was in little boy heaven. Sea worms make little sunken holes in the sand and though he never managed to catch one (neither did Mommy), he didn’t tire of trying.

His footprints always stop at the shells, which he picked up and tossed into our bucket. He’s still pigeon toed, and I’m duck-footed. “Match; birds” as Milo would say.

Splashing in tidal pools was the other major hit of the day. “Leave no puddle un-splashed” was Milo’s motto. I remember the joy of kicking in shallow pools during family vacations at Cape Cod, and I’m glad Milo can experience something similar, even if he’s missing the warmth and the crab bites and the cousins.

Milo was worried that my feet, disappearing down into the sand, were getting stuck. He grabbed a leg and started tugging upwards. Helpful little bugger!

He didn’t want to let his own feet ooze down too far beneath the surface, but he enjoyed hiding just his toes.

Jeremiah was reticent to pick Milo up the conventional way because he was so soggy, and his pants got so wet that they wouldn’t stay up….but we eventually made it back to the dry clothes awaiting us at the car.

Here’s a small portion of our day’s take. The limit is 50 mussels per person so we got 150 of them, and Jeremiah was kept busy cleaning and steaming for the rest of the evening.  You should have seen the state of the kitchen when he was done….  And no, we didn’t eat them all at once. We’re giving some to friends and we’ll try freezing some for later use.

“Oopsy daisy,” Milo exclaims as his sticker falls to the floor. “Cookie Monster no eat it! No eat it me!”
Translation: Whoops, my sticker just fell on the floor. I had better pick it up for else Cookie Monster will eat it.  He’ll eat MY sticker! 

Last weekend I took a trip to a mountain range 3-4 hours south of Christchurch, exploring new territory with a group of 4 other guys from work.  Our agenda: shoot bull Tahr (a Himalayan mountain goat) in all their winter long-haired glory, and get some exercise to boot.

We stayed at one of the few huts that is 4wd accessible…. if you arrange ahead to get the key to a gate from the station owner that the track crosses over.  The bikes belong to some guys that didn’t get the owner’s key.

Most of the huts in NZ were originally either sheep musters’ huts or deer cullers’ huts.  This one was originally a private hut when the area was grazed, and acquired by DOC when the private lease ran out and the land returned to the Crown.

Very tight for 5 guys, “bugger all” headroom on the top bunk.  Actually, one guy slept in the truck and another on the floor rather than bonk a forehead on a beam in the middle of the night.

We spent the entire day walking up in the mountains, glassing and looking for some tahr.

Two happy guys in their element, having a look on top of the peaks for some tahr.

Squint.  There are a few tahr in the center of the photo, out on a bluff, feeling very safe from us two-legged hunters.

Zoomed in… I did not shoot any (except with the camera) though they were within range. Retrieving them would have entailed ropes, harnesses and rock/ice climbing prowess, something for another weekend.  Tahr truly are an amazing animal.  They make it look so easy jumping around on those cliffs.

A mountain tarn with my Aussie mate Mark walking around on it.

A fine dinner of meat and a side of meat, washed down with a little beer.  Hang the veggies. 

Mmmmm, roasting socks.  After a day of 5 guys walking around in the mountains, socks can be pretty ripe drying over the wood stove.

I didn’t come back with a prize trophy (much to Molly’s relief), but it almost didn’t matter. Those mountains are wonderful. Not a cloud in the sky, meteors streaming at night, wild, untamed country, unhampered by societal rules. I could live up there with the tahr.

I like the light switches better here. How petty is that? But when we first came I was grasping for anything that I could say was better, and light-switches made the list. The little square that tips one way or the other is just nicer to use (and quieter) than our lever switches.

The toilets are also different, and now that I’ve gotten used to them I can maybe say they’re better. Those of you who remember your high school physics might ask which way the water swirls, being in the southern hemisphere, but the water just gushes and splashes in a raucous cascade and exits the generous whole in the bowl without any serene swirling. The up side? I’ve never ever seen a plunger in any bathroom, nor had the need to use one.