I caught, gutted and cooked my own fish!!!

After a very restless night in my dorm, some of the bunks were very creaky and woke me up every time the person sleeping in them rolled over, I was up to go kayaking with my new friend Emily. We were taken out onto the Bay of Islands in a 'waka', thats a Maori (native New Zealanders) canoe. Ours could have sat 6, but there was just me, Emily and our guide, called Mick, or Nick. It was a fantastic morning, totally not what we were expecting, but still brilliant.

We got soaked as soon as we got in as there is a drop off on the beach that he didn't tell us about and we ended up, up to our necks in water. It was pretty hilarious, probably mainly for anyone who was watching. Firstly, we headed over to find a pipi patch. A 'pipi' is kind of like a clam. Mick (or Nick) made us jump out of the waka and dive down to the sea bed to collect them. We were completely not prepared for this as it hadn't said anything about it on the flyer. But we did it anyway and it was totally hilarious. Unfortunately, Em and I were not very good at collecting pipi's, we kept finding empty or dead ones. After climbing, very ungracefully, back into the boat, Mick (or Nick) sang a Maori song to make the sun come out. It did, but I'm not sure whether that was due to the song or whether the clouds had been moving in that direction anyway. Once we were back paddling we put a fishing line out and tried to catch some fish. After following some birds around for a while (birds hunt for the smaller fish near the surface of the water and the bigger fish swim around underneath to eat the small fish, so you have to follow the birds) we ended up catching 3 fish! They were actually pretty big, I caught two and they were a bit tricky to reel in as there was no turny thing on the line like on a fishing rod. We gave one of our fish to some other kayakers who were having less luck than us fishing and named our two dead fish Harry and George.

We pulled our waka up on a little island beach and Mick (or Nick) had Em and I gut the two fish we had kept. This, was very weird, and kind of gross. We ate the smaller fish (Harry) sashimi style with soy sauce and wasabi. We didn't have a knife so we had to improvise with sharp mussel shells. Em and I can now survive on desert islands as long as we can catch fish! I can't remember the name of the fish but they were very meaty white fish, kind of like the Groupa we had in Dubai or Monkfish I think. We saved George for when we got back to the hostel. The kayaking was awesome, I definitely want to do more later on in the trip, it was so much fun. The bay we were in was huge but although it was salt water it was very calm and easy for us the paddle around.

When we got back to the hostel we had just enough time to fillet George (yes, I filleted a fish by myself) and bake him in the oven in some garlic and olive oil. The fish was very nice, very meaty and very filling. Then we were back on the bus to travel down to Auckland. We arrived in Auckland abotu 6.15 the evening. I really like the hostel we are staying at, it's much more social than the one I was staying at before. It has a lot more character because it's kind of all over the place and on lots of different levels and there are big open common areas. Em and I have ended up having a 6 person dorm to ourselves, well we did before we went out for dinner, it might have more people in now.

We went for dinner in the food court below the hostel. The food was amazing. There was a Thai food shop! So I got my favourite Massaman curry and some spring rolls. It was so nice but I couldn't finish it all! After working out a rough itiniery for out trip south Em and I headed to the bar below our hostel. We have been very restrained and limited ourselves to having the one free cocktail that was given out a 9pm. It was quite hilarious, apparently it's ladies night which means all the women get a free drink, and if the guys wanted a free drink they had to give the bar staff their shirt. It was great. But as we are both pretty knackered, have to be up at 7.30am, and want to save money for partying in some of the other towns, we have dragged ourselves away from the bar. I'm going to be heading to bed pretty soon.
xx