Nice shot out my kitchen window.

When it rains here, it really rains! This was after about a half hour of rain. In all, north of town it was raining about 6 inches an hour. Surprisingly the flooding wasn't too bad. But, it was bad enough. This is our street. It did not get past our side walk. Evidently this is a common site.

Driving towards Mt Somers.
Ok. I bought a fishing pole. You hear about how New Zealand has world class fishing? It much over rated. There are not a huge volume of fish. What puts NZ on the map is the sheer size of their fish. They are big! I would love to be able to decorate this page with pictures of the monster fish that I have caught. Except...I have not caught any. NZ definitely has world class fishing. You have to be a world class fisherman to catch one. They eat so much and have food available to them all the time that they don't feed aggressively like your typical trout. They eat exactly what they want to eat and only when they want to eat it. You can club them to death with every fly in your kit...but if that fish is not ready at that second to eat exactly that color and shape of bug that is on its own particular menu then you are S.O.L.

On a different batch of water I sat and watched a Brown Trout as long as the lower half of my leg for the better part of a half hour. I tried everything in my bag of tricks. I even poked at the damn thing with the tip of my fly rod just make sure it truly was alive and not a figment of my imagination. I almost expected it to bite off the end of my rod...but it just moved out of the way. Lazy fish. I need to re-learn how to fish evidently. I was so frustrated I walked back to my car and drove home.

I didn't see any truly big fish on this trip. I swear I saw a couple of 6" brook trout in this creek...but I suspect they were only young browns. About the only thing I caught were bites from sand flies. Nasty little buggers. They leave horrid large welts for days that itch like nothing else. Evidently you carry the welt and red spot for weeks. Welcome to Deet. I would rather deal with chemicals then that again.

I guess the secret of fishing is using a buddy to spot for fish and to guide your fly. Evidently they use binoculars, crawl on their belly down the rocks and through the mud and do all sorts of other ridiculous things to catch these fish. I don't know if they are pulling my leg or if they are serious. Alls I know is its cheaper to go to the market to buy the dang things than to catch them. If I had my rifle here, I would try shooting the dern things, that is how big they are.