Katy's Oz-some Blog: Seafood Fest!

We passed through Christchurch on our way up to Kaikoura so we stopped and took a bone carving class (very popular hobby in NZ). Our one-armed teacher, John, helped us file our beef bone pieces into cool pendants. That took about 3 hours then we continued driving up to Kaikoura. The plan was to go whale watching in Kaikoura, but when we arrived at our campground the lady said the whales had been “naughty” recently and weren’t showing up. She suggested fishing instead, that way we’d at least get dinner out of it. So we booked a fishing trip on the Sophie-Rose boat. Our one-legged captain, Nick, (this week’s theme was amputees) took us and 3 other people out. First we checked the crayfish pots (crayfish is quite the delicacy here, it sells for $40 each), the first pot had an octopus in it that we both got to hold! Nick was surprised that we actually held it, but it was so cool. It was all squirmy and was putting its suction things all over my arm. We had to kill the octopus after we held it because they eat all the crayfish. Later we took it over to some NZ fur seals on a rock and threw it to them but they weren’t hungry and let it sink. The next pot had a carpet shark in it that we also got to hold. Its called a carpet shark because their belly smells like wet carpet. I smelled it but im not convinced that’s what it smells like. The 3rd pot finally had crayfish in it! But only 3.

Then we went out into the deep water and started fishing. We caught a lot of sea perch, the other 2 people on the boat caught some blue cod, but sarah and I got the catch of the day when we each caught a grouper. Apparently that’s a really big deal and they are hard to catch so Nick was very impressed and Im pretty sure half the town heard about it before we left this morning. When I caught my grouper I had a perch on the other hook (the line was double hooked) so needless to say it was quite a workout reeling it in. we were fishing in about 70m deep water so it takes awhile to reel your line all the way back up. After my grouper I caught a dogfish shark. You cant eat it but Nick saved it for bait. Nick filleted our fish right as we caught it, some were still flopping around even after being filleted! After we had our fill we went over to where there was a pod of about 100 dolphins swimming around and doing acrobatics. It was awesome!!!! So unreal.

Then we headed in. Kaikoura is beautiful….there are snow capped mountains right next to the ocean. Jerry, the boat owner, invited us to stay the night as his backpackers so he could cook our fish properly and we could celebrate our big catches with some wine. It was really fun and we just sat around eating fresh fish, drinking local wine with feijoa (local fruit) juice and chatting. We had boiled crayfish tail (tastes like lobster), fried grouper and baked perch. Delicious! Jerry was so hospitable and it was nice to be invited over to be among locals! His house is right on the main road to the wharf so out his front door he has an amazing view of the mountains and ocean. We stayed in our van in his backyard and feel asleep listening to the sound of the ocean. Perfection! It was a fantastic weekend. Enjoy the pictures!