Kurow and fishing on the Waitaki River

On New Year’s Day we went to the annual Kurow market in the morning. It was described to us by a local as a place for locals to sell their crap so we didn’t have high expectations!
There were various food stalls and gift stalls so we managed to kill an hour here happily.

In the afternoon we met Squid (the local who offered to take us fishing) at his house. Squid used to be a professional fly fishing guide but also likes to fish with spinners on the river for salmon and trout, which is what we did today.
He took us in his boat up the Waitaki river all the way to the dam, stopping in places he thought we might catch fish. It was a great day, so nice to be on the river but unfortunately we didn’t catch anything.

We freedom camped near Kurow island that night in the car park next to the river .

On 2nd we walked up the Kurow trail. It’s only a short walk, about 1.5km but you climb around 450m so you do end up with good views.

In the afternoon we went to 2 wineries. The Ostler winery has its cellar door (wine bar/bodegas) in Kurow itself and the River T winery is just a few miles out of Kurow and their cellar door looks out onto their vineyard.
We chatted with the owners of Ostler for a while and we left with a bottle of their 5 time champion winning Pinot noir to have on Chris’ birthday!

At River T we treated ourselves to a lovely platter of food and a bottle of reisling and Pinot Gris (white wine) whilst sat on their terrace in the sun. They also let us camp there over night so we didn’t need to worry about how much we drank. It was a beautiful view to wake up to!

Today, 3rd Jan, we met Squid again for another go in his boat on the river and hopefully to catch a bloody fish!
We went the opposite way down the river and I managed to catch 2 rainbow trout!
Squid has invited us for tea at his house, he’s cooking local venison.