A Break from Thailand - Kaipara Fishing Trip

I thought I'd take a break from my Thailand adventures to tell you about a fantastic New Zealand one. A couple of weeks ago Coastguard organised a fishing trip on the Kaipara Harbour. The harbour is situated on the northwestern side of the North Island, and is just over an hour from Auckland. It is one of the largest harbours in the world, and apparently the biggest in the Southern Hemisphere - it's roughly 40 miles from north to south! 

We all met up in a small place called Helensville, situated at the southern end of the harbour, and climbed aboard our vessel - The Lady Frances. Our skipper for the day was a guy called Rod, and he had Stewie on board as his First Mate. They were just like you imagine a couple of salty old sea dogs to look like! Rod must have been in his 60s, wearing a knitted jumper and very baggy jeans, and he also had a huge white beard. Kind of like Captain Birdseye, only much thinner! Stewie chain-smoked his way through the trip and had also chosen a knitted jumper and jeans (which were very dirty and full of holes!). They were very nice though and knew the harbour, and all the buoys and markers, like the backs of their hands. Some of the things they pointed out weren't on the charts that we use, so it was a good learning experience.

From Helensville to our first fishing stop took around 45 minutes, and on the way we saw a colony of seals. There were some very cute baby ones, and a few adults too. Rod knew exactly where they would be and steered the boat near to the rocks so we could have a good look and take some photographs. We then carried on to our first stop which was just inside the harbour with an excellent view of the Tasman Sea beyond. The fishing here was ok, just a little slow. I think between the 16 of us we caught 5 fish in an hour. Geoff is pictured below with the boat's first fish - a Kahawai.

After a disappointing first stop, we decided to head out to the Tasman Sea.  To get from the harbour to the open ocean, we had to cross the infamous Kaipara Bar. The bar is the stretch of water between the headlands, and is notorious for huge waves and strong currents. It's extremely dangerous in bad weather, but fortunately for us, it was calm and sunny. It was so calm and warm in fact that I managed to fall asleep - apparently not an easy feat on a bar crossing!

Once we had arrived at our second and final location, we only had to wait for a few minutes before all hell broke loose! We were just reeling the fish in one after the other after the other. There were times where our lines didn't even have time to reach the sea floor before there were fish on the hooks - I must have landed around 15-20 fish just on my own. At some points we were even catching two at a time! The fish were mainly Snapper, but we also got some Trevally, Kahawai and Gurnard. I think the last two pictures in the sequence below are a very good representation of our fishing trip!

My personal success was catching one of the largest fish of the entire trip - a HUGE Snapper I decided to call Hamish. Even Rod wanted to get in the photograph of myself with Hamish (I hope you see what I mean by Captain Birdseye now!). Unfortunately for Hamish, although I'm sure he enjoyed the ride in the car, he did not seem to happy about the trip to the frying pan. He was absolutely delicious though and served me for two meals. His friends are now all snuggled up enjoying the inside of my freezer, and will meet the frying pan soon!

I really enjoyed my first fishing experience in New Zealand, and can't wait to go again. Hopefully the next trip will be as successful as this one was!

Thailand Part II - Butterfly and Orchid Gardens, and Phuket Town

On our second day in Phuket we caught a bus into the town to explore the centre of Phuket. The bus journey itself was an experience I'll never forget! The buses are similar to small flat bed trucks with a roof over the top. They have two benches (one at either side) and then a platform at the back. I don't think I have ever seen so many people crammed into a vehicle that size. Once the benches had been filled, they then got people to 'stand' (basically hunched over) through the middle, and then packed people on the back platform. There were even three children in the front, one in the footwell and two in one seat! The bell was right at the front of the bus too, so a message had to be passed to the front if you wanted to get off at any point. Phuket itself was very busy, lots of people and traffic. The shops were cheap, but you had to haggle for everything, which made it quite a chore to try and buy things.

Following our local transport experience we met up with a tour guide and he drove us to some of the sights in Phuket. Our first stop was a butterfly garden, which not only had butterflies, but also creepy crawlies like spiders, beetles and stick insects. They also had giant centipedes, so mum, I took a photo of one just for you to remind you of our experience in Rarotonga!

Following the butterfly garden we went and visited the harbour. The police vessels looked quite nice, and were tied up alongside a medical boat. Unfortunately, not all the vessels in the harbour looked quite as sea-worthy!

After checking out the boats, we went and had a meal in one of the restaurants nearby. I chose sweet and sour deep fried fish, with a side order of rice. Again, it was very cheap, and absolutely delicious. The view wasn't too bad either, despite the weather.

Our final stop of the day was Phuket Orchid Garden. I thought it was great, I got a couple of free stems on the way in, and saw some beautiful flowers. I would have loved to have purchased some of them, but unfortunately New Zealand Customs are very strict, and would have almost certainly have confiscated them. I couldn't even take my stems back, so gave them to one of the maids that cleaned our room. She thought they were lovely, and I also like to think that it made her make a special effort with our room!

That's about all for part II, look out for Thailand part III - coming soon to a blog near you!

Thailand Part I

I have finally managed to find the time to copy the photographs of my holiday from my camera on to my laptop, so I can now share my adventures with you! It was kind of a last minute decision to go, but I was in need of a holiday, and a friend of mine had some time off, so we decided to go together. We were torn between Hawaii and Thailand, but once we realised how cheap Thailand is, we opted for Phuket for 10 nights. We managed to bag ourselves a five-star hotel for next to nothing, the room was lovely, and the shower was HUGE - it was so big, it had an echo! My favourite bit though was when they came to 'turn down the bed' and left orchids on the duvet. 

The hotel itself was also amazing, it had a very modern multi-gym, a health spa, and golf carts to run you around the complex (even though they weren't really needed). The restaurant served some lovely food, and the bar had an excellent choice of cocktails. The view from the pool area wasn't too bad either!

After exploring the hotel, we took to the streets to check out the local area. Fortunately we weren't in a very touristy area, so we got the authentic Thai experience. The immediate region was full of small roadside stalls, with local produce and cooking, and where very few people spoke English! It did make things a little difficult, but by pointing and using hand signals, we could usually sort something out. The roads were quite crazy - the vast majority of people owned scooters and would just weave in and out of the traffic to get to their destination as quickly as possible. I'm pretty sure that some of the scooters weren't even roadworthy, and some of them were used to carry what looked to be entire families around.

I think the best bit about staying in one of the quieter areas of Phuket was the food. Although some of the larger bars were dressed up to attract the tourists, the food was all cooked fresh in front of you, and pretty much everything was cooked in a wok. All of the meals were so full of flavour, and dirt cheap. At one place (where they spoke NO English at all!) I managed to get a green curry and chicken fried rice with cashew nuts for the equivalent of £2. It was touch and go what I would actually get in the end, but my iPhone translator seemed to do the trick.

Ok, so I think that's all I have to say about my first impressions of Thailand. More adventures to follow at a later date.....