The weather gods decided to play in our favour so we could finally get out to do some fishing. Roy and I had good success over the first couple of days with one or two snapper caught each day which meant we could enjoy fish for dinner nearly every night. It’s just a short drive from the camp to the other end of the beach where there is vehicle access onto the beach 
An overview of the camp area wedged between the curves of the river.
Last Friday Roy and I decided that we would go down to the beach and have another fish, the weather was overcast with the odd shower coming through but we thought it was worth going to the beach and having a try, besides, it’s better being on the beach than finding jobs to do in the van. So off we went and we soon had our kite out flying, not too far out though as we know that there is a reef about 900m off shore and we don’t want to get our lines caught on the reef. We text Pat & Sue to let them know that the wind was going in the right direction for kite fishing so they came down as well and set their kite out further along the beach.
Once the kite is safely locked off its just a waiting game, when we play the guessing game of trying to determine how long we should keep the line in the water – usually we figure about an hour is good.But what do we do for an hour? sometimes one of us will wander off for a walk along the beach and a beachcomb, other times is just a matter of sitting and waiting. This time however, we came prepared. As we can drive the car onto the beach and sit in the car to wait we had brought with us with our wifi router and iPads with headphones so we could both watch/listen to our individual choices of programmes and dodge the showers.
Waiting….
For this lovely lot to be hauled ashore
6 snapper ranging from 36 -40cm plus a 55cm Trevally
Not to be outdone, Pat & Sue caught 3 snapper and a small trevally. With all this fish to deal with We thought that it would be a shame to waste the fish frames and heads as there is plenty of edible fish left behind. We sometimes smoke the heads and wings and have lots of smoked fish but this time we thought we could give them away. I had read about a web site that puts you in contact with people who are happy to pick up heads and frames for their use so we decided to give it a go. I rang a lady on the list and yes she would love to come and pick up the heads and frames. Within an hour she was at the camp delightedly taking away all the heads and frames. The website is Free Fish Heads a fantastic initiative as it means there is no waste. The lady rang me later that evening to say thank you, that she really appreciated having such lovely fresh fish heads and her family really enjoyed them.
It’s not all fishing and relaxing when we are on the beach though, one day Roy and I were just settling down to wait patiently for the line to do it’s thing when we see a young lady come walking toward us with purpose in her stride. When she finallygot to us, she was so out of breath and in between sobs, she struggled to talk. We sat her down and tried to calm her somewhat before she could tell us of her tale of woe. It seemed that her car had skidded off the road back at the entrance to the camp. She had already walked into the camp area to try and find help but as there was no one around she had then trekked down to the beach to find us. Poor thing was beside herself. I took her back to her car to see if we could tow it out, but it was too difficult and I did not want to create even more damage to her car by attempting to move it so after much discussion we called a local towing company. They were with us pretty quickly after only waiting 20minutes, in that time I discovered she was visiting from Argentina and was hoping the car was not too badly damaged as she only had a week left in New Zealand. Once she was sorted I left her in the capable hands of the tow truck driver and returned to the beach to help Roy pull in our line.
Ooops!
This is not the first accident we have seen on this particular corner, as on previous visits to Rarawa we have seen a couple of vehicles on their side either in this ditch or the one on the opposite side of the road.
We had to leave Rarawa on Sunday as we had the van booked in at Kaitaia Tractors on Monday to have its annual service, and to have the brake linings replaced and for it to have it’s CoF done Tuesday morning. So what are we to do all day whilst the van is in the workshop? We go out to Tokerau Beach to catch up with Gary & Marg. To cut a long story short, we ended up staying the night with them. During the afternoon we headed off to the beach and collected a bucket of Tuatuas which we will shell and eat later as fritters. That evening, we all thought it would be a great idea to watch a movie…Gary & Roy – both of whom spent their working careers in IT – spent a good wee while trying to sort out TV, connections, PC and cables with lots of muttering and mumbling going on…it looked like this
We picked up the van on Tuesday afternoon, initially we had hoped to return to Rarawa but the camp had been closed that day for the next 3 weeks as DoC are treating the campsite for Argentinian Ants. So plan B was instigated. Instead we headed back up to Houhora where Pat & Sue were already parked and here we will stay for a week.
Pat & Sue wanted to go and do some fishing in their wee boat, and with Houhora having a safe harbour they can easily launch it and go off fishing in and around the harbour. But it’s only 15 minutes from here to Rarawa so yesterday Roy & I went up to have another fish off the beach. We sent the kite up, attached the long line and proceeded to wait.
Roy baiting up the hooks.
On hauling the line back in we only had one fish on the line, a reasonable sized Kahawai which we decided to use as bait and immediately sent the line straight back out again. The next retrieve was much more successful with these two beauties landed to take home.
44cm and 62cm
Needless to say we have had fish on the menu most days and as well, the freezer is full of vacuum sealed packs of fish fillets, enough to keep us going for sometime.
The Vanninis' Manoeuvres 