Photos below from Jozef ‘s team from Slovenia.  He is showing others around the region with a selection of trout from Tongariro, Lake Otamangakau, Waitahanui, etc.  When anglers travel so far to enjoy our fishy environment it is confirmation that we really do live in Paradise…

Meanwhile…. you will be delighted to learn this is my last Daily Report …

I leave today for the Great New Zealand Trek from somewhere in the South Island to somewhere else – I don’t even care where any more.

A big bunch of other crazies – about 100 + horse riders, 60 + hikers, 40 + bikers plus volunteer crew started at Cape Reinga in 2006 and each year complete another stage heading south.

This one week away is the only official annual leave SWMBO grants Her laundry staff so I am looking forward to escaping TRM and catching up with a great bunch of people that have survived the GNZT for the last ten years.

This year I understand much of the trip is through some huge farms and stations in the foothills of the Southern Alps that have secret remote (i.e. un-accessible to common garden variety anglers) spring creeks and unknown farm tributaries to major rivers…   After another unfortunate earthquake the trout get nervous and will attack anything.  So I might take a fly rod as well, just in case…

Photo of trek horses wading across the Manganuiateao River west of Raetihi in 2011.

While I am away another TRM inmate, Murray Cullen, has offered to keep an eye on the Tongariro and to keep you up to date with anything to do with fishing and other items that may be of interest.

So you can confidently expect a huge improvement in TRM’s journalistic standards and more fascinating almost unbelievable fishy stories for the rest of February.

The one thing I will really miss on the GNZT is Her home cooking…  Below is a slide show of the North Island stages – just in case it is of interest to you for 2017?