A sober Welly Sevens? Good luck

As I mentioned last year, the Wellington Sevens are not exactly tea and crumpets with grandmother.

In fact, the tournament, which is this weekend, is rather raunchy and very, very drunken.

It is perhaps the wildest communal loss of sanity that I've ever been part of. Its two redeeming qualities are: the astonishing creativity of the costumes people wear and, hey, it's a Sevens rugby tournament.

But did I mention it is very, very drunken?



While Amy and I saw a lot of highly amusing antics during the course of our day around the Sevens last year, we both remarked that, if things don't change soon, something bad was going to happen. Something real bad. You can't have that many people that drunk for that long with innocence preserved.

Well, it seems organizers of the tournament get that too.

They have announced that they are offering more than $75,000 in cash incentives to try to entice sevens fans to arrive at the tournament early and sober.

Not only are they after "messy" drunks - who were in evidence everywhere last year. In fact, several people saw themselves on the big screen - and therefore on the screens of folks at home - and promptly droped trou. We saw people falling down stairs and throwing up prolifically.

In addition to cutting down on extreme drunkenness, though, the folks behind the tournament want to try to tempt people to actually show up for the games during the early part of the two-day tournaments, when stands have been close to empty.



In order to get a full stadium before kick-off there will be a series of drawings that people can only claim if they are in their seats - prizes of up to $500 each.

There will also be big money awards for costumes and a fashion show with a $25,000 purse.

All I can say is, "God bless ... and good luck with that."

I'm afraid the culture of the weekend has already been set and it's one of debauched hedonism, of checking out of the mundane and doing precisely what you want for 48 hours. I'm not sure the chance to win $500 for having bum firmly planted in seat just after lunch time is going to do it. But I hope it does, because the mood of the Sevens will become very dark if the partying turns to tragedy.


The American Eagles Sevens team are in town for this year's tournament. They are training hard, meeting Kiwis and not doing any partying at all. The cute dogs in this picture did not, however, belong to the Eagles or the cheerleaders.

Confronting my fears feet first

Sometimes I feel like the old guy in a bar bitching about his life.

"You see that dock out there?" he says to the young man beside him. "I built it myself, hand crafted each piece. It's the best dock in the country. But do they call me McGregor the dock builder?

"No they do not. And you see that bridge over there? It's a beauty, the pride of the whole county. But do they call me McGregor the bridge builder? No, they do not."

This goes on for a while until the old man leans into his young listener, "You can do all these wonderful things in your life, but you sleep with one sheep and you're forever McGregor the sheep shagger."

So one time I confess publicly to an altercation with some chickens. I even wrote about it and shared my trauma with the people so that they may be spared a similar terror.

And what do I get in return? Well, my buddy Ola - for one - has taken every opportunity to taunt me, placing chicken sounds in my office and burying me in terrifying photos. Below is the latest, from a picnic at which we met the USA Eagles Sevens team.

It doesn't matter what I do in New Zealand, it seems, I will always be known as the chicken and cone man. That's some legacy.

A castle on the hill ... or not

I sometimes take my family on sort of reverse scavenger hunts: I know what I'm looking for, but have no clues as to how to find it.

Today we set out to find a castle. Yes, a castle in Wellington, a place with a decided lack of medieval history. I'd not heard of this particular castle until my friend Mike told me about it. It was just along from the wind turbine on the hills above Brooklyn, he assured me.

I didn't think I'd need maps. How hard could it be, right? I mean a castle is a big thing with sticky-uppy bits.

So we packed a lunch and, like King Arthur's knights in search of the Holy Grail, set off to find our castle on a hill making horsey noises with imaginary coconuts.

The expedition started well enough, with glorious views over the Wellington harbor. From there we set off into the bush. It's astonishing how quickly you can go from the metropolitan to the wilds around Wellington. We hopped a stile from a paved road onto a trail. The tracks up here are a runner's and mountain biker's dream.


Are we in New Zealand or West River, South Dakota?

They are not, however, a gimpy family's dream. Soon we were slip-sliding away on the steep descents, knees were buckling and ankles twisting and we quickly tried to get back to the road. We still made Monty Python clip-clop noises, keeping the adventure alive.

At one point we were looking over miles of the Hawkins Hill nature reserve. The sea of green was pretty, but castleless.

"Are you sure there's a castle up here?" Amy asked, giving voice to the family's growing doubt about my boy scout/wilderness leadership skills, perhaps even my word.

"Of course I am."

"Are you sure Mike wasn't having you on, Dad?" asked Ewan, adding that perhaps we might have heard about something like a castle before - had there actually been one.

"No, he wouldn't do that," I said. "He's my friend."

Suddenly we heard some rustling coming from the copse above us. The good thing about New Zealand is that there are no animals that will eat or attack you. So our first thought was not, "Bear. Run."

Yes, we were curious rather than petrified hearing the creepy wildlife noises all around us while we were in the middle of nowhere.

Turns out it was a drove of goats.

We're not fond of goats. Who is really? They're like ugly sheep. Sheep who actually know what to do with those pointy things on their heads.

Speaking of ugly. I soon heard another commotion, this time coming from Amy and Ewan behind us.

Having already told you what the good thing about the whole wildlife experience in New Zealand is, here's the bad thing. They're called Weta bugs. They are massive and they bite and they reduce a lot of people to blubbering idiots. Ewan actually tripped on this one, which is how he discovered it. The thing was still alive, and you have to keep it that way because the critters are protected.

Still castleless, we moved on quickly.

"Look, they can't hide a castle," I told my ever-more dubious family.

"Let me guess," Amy said, "it's just around the corner, right?"

"It has to be. A castle is big. It's not like we've walked past it and Mike said it wasn't far from the turbine."

Then we were looking over Long Gully. This is a wide-open green space, an unspoiled valley snaking out ahead of us. There was no castle. I had lost my family's commitment by this time. We'd been hiking an hour and a half. It was time to head homewards. Father Arthur had failed.



Then we came around a corner and there was an ostrich strutting it's John Cleese-like best along a fence line. An ostrich on a mountain. It was magic. In a castleless sort of way. I must confess that I began to doubt my friend Mike.

When I posted a picture of the boys and the ostrich on Facebook, the first person to comment was Mike. He said, "Hey, that's up near my place. Did you get to the castle?"

We all laughed. I felt vindicated - as a man whose word can be counted on, if not exactly my skills of navigation.

We will find this castle.

It's just Palmy to friends

Towns with a "New" or a directional attached to their name have always seemed, well, sort of derivative, wannabe places.

So I had low expectations for Palmerston North, named after former British Prime Minister Viscount Palmerston and thus distinguished from its uni-named sister city of the South Island.

The drive through the green breadbasket of New Zealand put me in good spirits. The rolling hills, the impeccable farms, the endless palette of greens are a great safety net to any troubled soul.



Thus buoyed, Palmerston North - Palmy, as the locals call it - came as a very pleasant surprise. The layout of the place, the gentle unpretentiousness of the houses with their immaculate gardens put me in mind of Christchurch when it was still Christchurch. The original design was, and remains today, a series of wide, straight and flat streets in a rectangular pattern - the opposite of everything Wellington.

The locals are rightfully proud of their little town of 80,000 souls in the eastern Manawatu Plains. A little research reveals that the first Europeans discovered what was then Te Papaioea, peopled by the Ngāti Rangitāne, in 1830. When the first outside traders came it was nothing more than a clearing in the long forest and the dense bush. That is evocative, as there wasn't any forest on my two-hour drive from Wellington - a testament to Palmy's beginnings as a saw-milling town.

The windmill farm atop the ranges flanking Palmerston North, the largest in the southern hemisphere with 158 turbines, now stands in place of the long-gone trees.



At the heart of the town is the gorgeous, vibrant plaza known as The Square. It is an anachronism in this age of box stores and suburban malls: there are restaurants, shops, and offices, all around a well-tended green space of 17 acres. It is a young town too, courtesy of the large university, Massey, with the prerequisite and ubiquitous coffee shops required by the constantly caffeine-starved youth of today. This busy plaza is a place that reflects the civic pride I saw everywhere in Palmy. By six in the morning The Square was already being readied for the day's business: the chess board was set up, the tables and chairs put out, the garbage removed.



Lots of parks and green spaces give Palmy an outdoorsy feel that is at once rural and urbane. The folks I met were heartland Kiwis, tough and independent with a good dusting of worldliness. But most of all they were proud of a town they feel doesn't get enough credit for its depth and variety.

I'd have to agree with that. Having been in New Zealand 18 months, I haven't heard a lot of folks bragging on Palmy. Not one, in fact. And that's a bit of a shame.

A record remembered 50 years

Fifty years ago today, Peter Snell - today known as Sir Peter George Snell, KNZM, MBE - broke the world record for the mile. On the grass track at Cook Gardens in Wanganui, he came in at 3:54.4.

Eight days later, he broke the 800m and half mile (880 yards or 805m) world records, again on grass in Christchurch.

The 50th anniversary was celebrated today back at the same park with a star-studded meet.

Snell won three Olympic (Rome 1960, Tokyo 1964) and two Commonwealth Games gold medals. With a lot of promise left, at least in the imgaginations of New Zealanders, Snell announced his retirement in 1965 at age 27. He currently resides in Texas.

Snell is still revered in New Zealand and was named New Zealand's Sports Champion of the (20th) Century". That's what his five individual world records earned him.

The Summer of Death

New Zealand over the traditional holiday season has seen carnage on an almost industrial scale. Not only have the pages of the daily newspapers told a steady tale of horror, the avoidable and bizarre nature of some of the deaths has left much of the country shaking its head at the senselessness of it all.

New Zealand is a small and intimate country where it seems just two degrees separate one person from another. So the death toll, while certainly small by American standards, are stunning here. Everyone seems to know someone who has been taken.

These deaths come on top of a massive increase in drownings in 2011 (up 43 percent), and one of the worst holiday season road death toll in many years (up 50 percent).

The tempestuous weather certainly has had something to do with it. Many trampers, folks who have headed up into the mountains to hike, have been killed in falls or while abseiling (repelling). In one horrific accident a 15-year-old boy got his foot stuck in a chasm and hung upside down in a waterfall for three hours before rescuers could finally free him. He died in hospital.

In 2011, 123 Kiwis drowned, many of them kids, again highlighting the high numbers of New Zealand youngsters who can not swim - seven out of 10 kids can't swim well enough to save their lives. Now that we are again in the middle of swimming season, the drownings have begun again. Heartbreaking vigils on beaches are pictured weekly as family members hope against hope that their missing relatives - swept out to sea by rip tides or drowned in rough seas - will be found alive.

They rarely are.



Drowning is the third leading cause of accidental death in New Zealand.

The most bizarre - and horrendous - death came late last week. A man who had been out drinking until the early hours of the morning dropped his car keys through a grate into the stormwater system. He opened the grate, tried to reach down to grab his keys and fell into 1 1/2 feet of water. With no way out at the bottom and no way to get himself out of the narrow space, it is presumed he slowly lost strength and slipped beneath the water, dying what must have been a horrible death.

Boatsmen - boaties, as they're known here - haven't been immune either. Again, the wild weather that can spring up with terrifying speed has a hand in many of the fatalities. People are constantly caught off guard, but many are also ill-prepared. Authorities caution people to prepare for the worst, even if making only a leisurely outing.

The infamous Foveaux Strait, at the tip of the South Island, has again claimed two victims. This time two fishermen drowned after more than five hours in the freezing waters when their boat capsized.

The turbulent Strait has taken more than a dozen lives in the last decade.

There has also been a terrible hot air balloon crash that killed 11 people at the beginning of the year, as well as a couple of fatal light aircraft crashes.

The Summer of Death, so dubbed by the chief of mountain safety, has certainly been one of terrific human cost. It's become an exercise in dread reading the daily newspapers. We can only hope that a calmer season returns soon.

Pink sheep, people, hot pink sheep

Look, I know I started my tour in New Zealand by saying I would mention sheep just one time. I was born in Scotland, and was sensitive to misperceptions any sheep talk might leave. I feared insinuations might be made.

Having heard a hundred Aussies telling a thousand sheep-shagging jokes about their Kiwi cousins, however, I feel exempted to a certain extent; there's a war going on in which Scotland is not involved. Best to keep your head down and a smile on your face when others are shooting but not aiming at you.

Still, it's time to address the sheep issue again. It is, after all, something vital to the way of life of New Zealand. I'm sure this will elicit some charming comments from my English readers, even if I remind them that I am now an American citizen living in North Carolina, where there may be three or four sheep. Still, as a faithful chronicler of life in New Zealand, sheep just have to be mentioned.

This, however, is not about sheep-shagging, of the Caledonian or Antipodean variety.

It's about pink sheep. Or, as a recent article on Stuff.co put it, hot pink sheep - though that may be getting a bit close to my danger zone.

The flamboyant sheep live at SheepWorld in the north of New Zealand, and the whole thing is, as most cool things unfortunately are, a gimmick.

The article expressed some surprise that pastel-colored sheep would garner worldwide attention. Well, color you stupid, buddy. Dyed sheep will do it every time.

For what it's worth, SheepWorld gives visitors an insight into how the country farms sheep and how the wool is used. Two daily shows see dogs round up and bring the sheep inside, which are then shorn.

Of course none of this matters very much. It was a cheap and transparent ploy to post some pictures of pink sheep. It's not the deepest thing I've ever done. I'm not proud of that, my friends. Not proud at all.

The windy, narrow roads of Welly

With houses stuck onto the sides of hills like this, you know the drives are going to be a little hairy. Admittedly, it's not entirely arrogance or optimism - Wellington is, after all, on a massive earthquake fault - that started this rash of aerie building. It did all begin with a bit of historical deception by the New Zealand Company.

Still, that was more than 170 years ago, and you'd think modern-day Wellingtonians would know better. But the views from the side of the hill are just too wonderful. Why wouldn't you take a little risk? And yet the bloody drives up and down the narrow little roads will stop the heart of a casual visitor.

We were having dinner with some friends the other night. They have the blessing/misfortune of living up a very steep hill. Yes, they have a view of the harbor. But, yes, they have a steep and narrow commute that, unfortunately, they have to share with other human beings, some of whom happen to drive less than perfectly. Cars come shooting round the corner in the middle of the road and come screeching to a halt inches from your bumper. It keeps the heart pumping.



Oh, and add buses into the mix, because buses absolutely should be allowed up roads that are as narrow as the one above. We all know how considerate public transportation drivers are to their fellow drivers, so there shouldn't be a problem there. Our friend told me how, of a morning, she'll head into town and see every side mirror ripped off cars for long stretches of the narrow street.

A new game, perhaps? Side Mirror bowling? I'm not usually a white-knuckle driver. As you can see by the picture above, however, they don't really go in for solid safety barriers. You could plow through some of these wooden babies and end up on the roof of someone's house a hundred feet below.

It gets even more hairy at night. Suffice it to say that, especially after February 22, we're really happy not having a view and being in our boring little subdivision with its wide roads and friendly drivers and the absence of mountains for our house to be built upon. If we do happen to swerve off the road, we're just going to end up in someone's recycling wheelie bin. That's a lot less nerve-wracking than the alternative.

A Flock of Seagulls

The miserable summer we're having here is forcing me into my photo archives. These huddled masses were on Makara Beach. The wind was ferocious enough to bundle the gulls together.


They didn't have to expend much energy to get away from me; they could hang on the breeze like a kite or, with one flick of a wing, shoot off into the distance.

Some time in the Chill Bin

Not the ideal image from our summer hols. Once it started snowing in the hills above Queenstown, though, we decided to go all in. We went to an ice bar. Reminded us of many of our nights out in South Dakota, except a little warmer - it was only -9 in there. The glasses were made of ice and we were allowed to smash them before leaving. It all felt a little like being in the Ice House scene from Dr. Zhivago. Funny what you'll pay good money for when you're a tourist.

Second day follow

I just feel so crappy writing one story about the beloved Conrad Fink dying and then just moving on with other posts. There really is no moving on with my mentor gone.

"What's the second day lede?" Fink would have asked.

That would be the extraordinary outpouring from his former University of Georgia journalism students and the malignant ache in me at the gaping whole his passing has left in my life.

Within hours of the news of his death the Finkites came together on Facebook. There has been a steady and heartbreaking stream of stories from the people - hundreds of them - that he not only touched but fundamentally changed - floundering, or at least aimless, lives to which he gave purpose.

Not one of them would take issue with that. He gave us drive and meaning and got us jobs. My first three jobs in journalism I owe directly to him. But that was the easy part. What he did for us was so much more: he transformed us, made us into an army of dedicated truth-seekers. He made us better than we were, gave us the rock-hard confidence to be what we could be.

Fink was a hard man with a soft heart that he tried to hide. An ex-U.S. Marine, if there is such a thing, he earned his stripes in the fires of perhaps the most competitive age of journalism that ever existed. As a journalist he worked harder than anyone and would have stepped on a puppy to get the scoop. No doubts about that. As a professor he wanted to instill that hardness in the softies who presented themselves in his classroom.

But you always knew that he loved you. He'd kill you for saying that, of course. But he loved you nonetheless. He said it by critiquing your stories. He showed it by working his connections on your behalf. He did it by returning every email, even 20 years after you'd graduated. He made you feel it with his nicknames for you - he always called me "laddie" because I'd been born in Scotland.

The stories on the Facebook page dedicated to Fink are astonishing. He made all of us feel special, unique. And yet, once he'd spotted you, once he'd identified you as someone with talent, you felt as if you were the most remarkable human being, the most incredible journalist in the world. It's what made you strive. It's what made you make that extra phone call. He made us. He created a whole network of talented human beings and he was its center.

That's why the Fink Facebook page is so amazing. We are his legacy and we speak a language that no one else knows.

The stories that are being told on the Facebook page are wonderful for their dichotomous wonder: he's tough, but he cares. For Fink it was all about getting the story, about being true, about seeking the truth, and about being fair. He knew he was sending us off into a world where the combat was ferocious, but he wanted to equip us with the tools to win: objectivity, passion, curiosity, determination and, above all, fairness.

What makes his death so much harder to take is that he was probably the last of his kind. Sure, there will be people with his values. Sure there will be people with his passion. But there will never be another guy who feels about newspapers, about the holy mission of newspapers and everything that meant for its people, the way Fink did. His death is the end of many things. His death is the changing of things.

We will all miss him. He told me once that his goal was to be able to fly into any city in the United States and have the editor or publisher of that newspaper be a Finkite and be there to pick him up. Michael Giarrusso, a Finkite and a great AP man, has created a map representing the location of all of Fink's people. It blankets the whole country. His wish came true. But we still have to work every day of our lives to keep his mission alive.

(Update: Amy just found the one picture I have of me with Fink. See below.)

A professional courtesy call?

We must have done something truly stupid this day. Usually Fink just called me when I was executive editor of the Athens Daily News and Banner-Herald to tell me how badly we had screwed up. Notice the pained look on my face and the cigarette in my hand!

Blanket Man is laid to rest

When Wellington’s most famous homeless guy died, it was on the front page of the capital’s newspaper.

Known simply as Blanket Man, Ben Hana had been on the streets for more than a decade. He could be seen on most days wearing nothing but a loin cloth and wrapped in a blanket. And while a lot of young Wellingtonians seemed to romanticize the Blanket Man or leastwise their "relationship" with him, his was not a happy tale of living life by his own rules - though that was the legend.

He had demons. He had addictions. He caused the death of a close friend in a drunken-driving accident that put his life into a tailspin. He lost his wife and his family and took to the streets.

And yet he ended up a cult hero and, after he died, a makeshift memorial took shape in Courtenay Place where he spent much of his time. Chalk messages - "I'll miss talking to you" - were scrawled on the sidewalks. It is said that he turned down offers of help because the only thing he had left in his life was the elevated status as "social icon."

In the end he died at 54, having been arrested many times, suffering from malnutrition and, if truth be told, being a menace to many folks just going about their business on Courtenay Place. I certainly never got warm fuzzies from the guy. He always seemed too out of it for conversation or bonding of any sort. In fact, the last time I saw him Amy and I were just going into the Library (It’s a bar; I’m not trying to be sanctimonious.), a large cloud of “suspicious-smelling” smoke was emanating from that famous blanket.

I think the tragedy of his life got lost in all the projection that other people were doing, their "kindnesses" to Blanket Man designed to reflect more on themselves than him. People offered real assistance. He turned it down. And nothing was done in the end to help him. He mysteriously disappeared from the streets during much of the Rugby World Cup, the time New Zealand welcomed the world to her shores. He was arrested, I'm told, to get him out of the public domain.

He died a lonely death.

A lot of people turned out to his service today. It looked an eclectic and caring group. A city councilor used the event to focus on the plight of other homeless people in the capital. It's a complicated and ultimately sad story.

More still from the Postcard Factory

I am sorry to do this. We didn't get enough time in Queenstown. To add insult to injury, it snowed while we were there. It was supposed to be Amy and the boys' summer holiday. So this is just a poor excuse to post a couple more pictures. No point, really. Just because.





While the snow did not make for the best swimming weather, it did wonders to improve an already beautiful view. Still, we're getting a little tired of being places in New Zealand and experiencing things that haven't happened in decades. We'd be quite happy with the run of the mill Kiwi experience.



This was the view from Skyline, the top of the gondola ride. Morgan took this picture. Ewan wasn't sure about the ride up. It did, indeed, look a bit dodgy. He and I gave it a miss.


This has to be one of the most glorious cricket ground in the world. It's right outside Arrowtown, just up the road from Queenstown.





So, just a few more pictures from the Postcard Factory that is New Zealand.

Mr. Fink, beloved mentor, is dead

I wore a keffiyeh to my first Conrad Fink journalism class at the University of Georgia. It was the sort of thing one did in college, pre-9/11 anyway.

"What's your name?" Fink asked me, in front of the rapidly filling classroom.

I was new to the United States, and certainly new to the American education system. I did not like drawing attention.

"Pratt," I responded.

"Where did you get that?" he asked, pointing at the sort of scarf popularized by Yasser Arafat.

"Bahrain, sir."

"What were you doing in Bahrain, Pratt?" By now I was squirming in my seat.

"Passing through," I said, just trying to dodge more questions and hoping people would stop staring at me.

He laughed at that, and said, "See me after class."

It sounded like a threat. Far from getting demerits for randomly wearing Arabic gear, Fink really wanted to know what the hell I was doing "passing through" Bahrain. It was the first conversation with a man who would profoundly influence my life.

Fink died over the weekend, leaving a massive hole not just in my life but in that of literally thousands of "Finkites" who adored the teacher who brought out the best in them, made them better than they ever dreamed they could be. At last count, his death was recorded by more than 230 newspapers around America, many of the obituaries written by his "kids." He published 11 text books, but more important, he changed lives.

Fink spotted my diffidence immediately. (I had to look up precisely what that meant after he'd used that word about me and was delighted it didn't mean anything worse.)

He told me I'd never make it in newspapers if I wasn't willing - even eager - to engage people. My problem was that back then I was still vaguely thinking about becoming a poet - for whom diffidence would be perfectly acceptable - or, like every other directionless student of an artistic bent, a writer for National Geographic magazine.

That didn't last. After a couple of weeks in Fink's class I wanted to be a newspaperman. More than anything. He made them seem important, powerful. The people who wrote for them soon became my idols. So he had to teach me how to learn to communicate with people, how to make an impression, how to earn trust.

"Everyone's got a story, Pratt," he said. You had to learn to ask the right questions, and to listen. (He used the flag in his office in the picture at top as a gauge of his students: who would ask about it, who would use it as a conversation starter.) I learned to love interviewing people and telling their stories and doing them justice.

Fink had done it all as a foreign correspondent for the Associated Press. We had to cajole his stories out of him. Right until the end he lived what he taught: the reporter is not the story, never should be. But when his students coaxed one out of him, we were in awe. Stories from the Soviet Union, India, Nepal, Japan - and Fink at the center, trying to get them out first, trying to get the scoop.

Two days before I was to fly to Cuba on assignment, he told me my favorite Fink story. It was not a newspaper story. While still in the U.S. Marines, Fink's ship had pulled into Havana. His buddies tried to encourage him to go drinking with them. He refused. He had other things to do. So, while his friends were hitting the bars, Fink walked the 11 miles up to Ernest Hemingway's house in the hills of San Francisco, overlooking Havana.

When he got there, the house maid told him that Hemingway was not there. So Fink walked all the way back. It was midnight by the time he returned to his vessel, and his ship mates were all drunk.

"You should have been there," one of the guys told Fink. "Some crazy American writer called Papa or something was buying us drinks all night."



Fink also taught me to love newspapers and to want to make them better. Throughout my many years in journalism, Fink was always there to help, to offer advice in terse, telgraphic emails or red-markered letters banged out on his typewriter. Even when I switched careers, he helped me and guided me.

I have a hundred stories to tell, but right now only one matters: He is gone and that hurts. He didn't just help me get a job, he managed to infuse me with a passion. I'm proud to have known him and called him friend by the end of his life. I'm proud that I got all the way through this post without mentioning his eyebrows. But above all, I'm grateful for everything he ever did for me.

But I can not tell you how upsetting it is knowing that he will not read this and I will not receive a proof-read and red-ink splattered version of it back telling me I could do better.

A good day's fishing on a bad day

One of the most remarkable sights of my life came on a family vacation in the Highlands of Scotland: thousands of salmon coming in from the ocean turned the river delta aboil jumping out of the water and landing on their backs trying to dislodge sea lice.

Even at that tender age I knew I was watching something remarkable and primal. We followed the river upstream to a powerful waterfall and watched the salmon trying to jump it and swim up to the spawning grounds. I've been besotted by the fish ever since.

So when I saw that there was salmon and trout fishing to be had on Queenstown's Lake Wakatipu, Ewan and I signed up. Ewan gets seasick, but he's willing to put up with it when fishing is involved.

The weather was, to say the least, not ideal. In fact, it snowed on the mountains around Queenstown, a perfect development for Amy's summer holiday. (Yes, I'm being sarcastic.) Added to the unseasonal cold was a good, stiff blow and four-foot waves. It had caused the flight to Milford Sound to be cancelled.

This being salmon-fishing, Ewan never even hinted about skipping. He's competitive when it comes to fishing, not that we do it too often. He pointed out that the last time we'd been angling he'd caught a tuna - and that I'd caught the fish he'd used as bait to catch said tuna. Ouch.

When I told him I'd never caught a salmon, he said, "Don't worry, Dad, we'll get one today." It's odd being patronized by your 12-year-old son, but when it comes to fishing I don't have many notches so I have to take it.

The wind and the waves picked up as we headed out of port. By God, it was bouncy and Ewan was hanging on for dear life. Had this been a sightseeing trip or some other pointless thing, he'd have been dry-heaving over the side and telling us we needed to get back to shore. But this was fishing and instead he wore a smile bigger than anything I've ever caught.

Brown and rainbow trout as well as salmon were introduced into the lake in the 1870s. They promptly set about devouring the local population of crayfish and kokopu. Only the longfin eel survived the newcomers. (You can watch them feed at the town's underwater observatory, if you're inclined to see something that makes your skin crawl.) The salmon breed in the lake - there being no access to the ocean from this elevation - and roam the massive waters, which can be up to 1,200 feet deep, alone. They're difficult to catch, especially at this time of the year, before the cicada and other larvae layer the water like an all-you-can-eat buffet.


Ewan, of course, was the first to hook onto something. He was delighted to see it was a salmon; not large, but a keeper.

"Ok, now it's your turn, Dad," he said.


In water this deep, we were trawling a spinner, not fly fishing - something the puritan in me was a tad upset about.



Until I too heard the line screaming out. Actually, the screaming might have been a figment of the imagination. The only fight I had with this salmon was the 400 feet of line I had to reel in.

When I brought him on board, the captain looked at me and asked me what I was going to do with it. He didn't want to come right out and tell me that I would be committing the fishing version of child abuse if I kept the thing. But when I told him I was going to put it back, he gave me the sort of meaningful look that let me know I'd done the right thing.

"Oh well, it was still a salmon," Ewan said. He was consoling me.

"Yes, it was," I said. "My first one."

We caught one more, cleaned it and took it to the pub across the road from the wharf. They cooked it for us. The whole hunter-gatherer thing was spoiled considerably for Amy when the bar charged us as much for the salmon we'd supplied as they would have for their own salmon.

Apparently we were just renting a chef. Still, it was fresh and good. And it was salmon.