Lake Brunner- Trout & Weka

Real-time

In fact this blog is hot off the press. We're back at one of favourite lakes, Lake Brunner, all set up for a weekend of fishing.

The Iveagh Bay freedom camping area has had a major makeover since our last visit.

It's lovely and has been very well done but I'm not so sure we didn't prefer the old site with soft grass underfoot and a more relaxed camping area.

May 2015

A Britz rental motorhome arrived late in the afternoon and the young couple went fishing along the lakeside not long afterwards. They were soon back with a lovely big Brown Trout in a plastic bag. I spotted the guy attempting to fillet it on one of the rail sleeper barriers so David walked down to see if he could help him out.

Next minute (nek minute) he's smoking it for them in our smoker! Kane & Kayleigh were thrilled to sample a trout cooked another way. I say 'another way' because the day before yesterday Kane caught a Rainbow trout at Kinloch, Lake Taupo and they baked it for dinner! Midas touch and a fast mover. 

So, if David has no luck or feels inclined to 'catch and release' all his fish, we can still say we've had some trout- we had a small section of the smoked fish courtesy of our tourist couple.

We've been doing our little bit of PR for tourists lately. Of course we're often asked about places to visit and we readily pass on information (and links to my blog) when talking to overseas visitors. Then there was the foreign couple sleeping in a car at the Featherston free camping area. David felt very sad for them, as they clambered about, hopping in and out of the car in the rain. And even though they shouldn't have been camping in the park he wanted to give them breakfast. So I made them each a bacon & egg sandwich which David took over to them as we were leaving. They were very grateful. Soon after we gave a guy a push out of the mud at Kaitoke and now today we've smoked a trout. 

I love being back on the Coast where there are dozens of weka families with various sized chicks. They are such curious characters full of personality. When I do the ghost town blog, you'll see some tiny newly hatched weka chicks but today the families had elder chicks in tow. 

This family were foraging in the mown grass beside the dump station in Greymouth.

There are three or four families here at Iveagh Bay and I sat myself down on the sleeper beside these guys as they were digging, scratching and feeding in a small boggy hole. Once the mother got going there was dirt and grass flying in all directions and very loud clucking noises coming from down in the hole.

'You say you dropped it down here somewhere?...'

'I see it Mum, I see it!'

There is a distinct size difference between these two chicks, the 'runt of the litter' missed out on many of the worms, its bigger sibling barging in and snatching food at every opportunity. I'm not too sure why one is smaller but perhaps it is because there's just the one adult looking after them. All the other families I've seen have had two adults (and in one case 3) feeding the chicks.

Tasty worms for lunch.

And a few more weka photos (can you tell I love weka)...

The chicks finally settled down for a rest on the side of the bush while their mother carried on digging. 

'A rare two headed weka chick'

Although the bigger chick still kept racing over to get a feed of worms when he spotted her approaching the pair.