We are still in Turangi and enjoying fishing the rivers and hiking on the mountains. In the last couple of weeks the weather has been pretty wet and with every decent rain more fish are coming up the rivers. The smaller ones like the Hinemaiaia are now full of trout and wherever one peers into the water there are fish. They are not that easy to land though thanks to a lot of snags and bank side vegetation and some of the willows along heavily fished pools look like Christmas trees with numerous nymphs and glow bugs decorating their branches.

With the rivers being in a natural state, every substantial flood changes their course and it was amazing to see how the last two floods changed the Tauranga-Taupo River. Some of our favorite fishing spots are completely gone or hold no longer fish and the raging torrent chewed away parts of the track and piled up some impressive logjams.

When fishing we are wearing our polarizing glasses all the time. Getting older, our arms seem to get shorter and tying on a fly or reading the small prints without magnifying glasses becomes near impossible. When looking for an alternative to glasses, we came across some stick-on magnifying lenses. Made in the USA out of a high quality plastic material, they can be cut to fit and stick to any kind of glasses.

Viktor has fitted some of his polarizing glasses with +3.00 lenses; they are nothing short of perfect and make tricky jobs so easy, see  www.optx2020.com

With the rain came more snow and made the skiers and boarders happy. The ski fields over here are quite different from the ones at home. Many of them can only be reached by narrow, often unsealed roads and without a four wheel drive one has to take a shuttle bus to get to the lifts. Compared with the European Alps the fields are usually much smaller, but the slopes are well prepared and the atmosphere is very relaxed.

The temperatures are rising and spring is on its way. Along the rivers the willows just started to sprout and around the house the rhododendrons and magnolias are already in full bloom and the first tulips show their colors.

Apart from outdoor activities we love to read books and our friend Jim recently recommended Harry Middleton’s “The earth is enough – growing up in a world of trout and old men”. We both enjoyed the story very much indeed and it made us enjoy the little things in life even more.

If everything goes according to plan we will leave the North Island by the end of September and be on the South Island for the opening of the trout fishing season on the 1^st of October.