Bag a Barra — 30 December 2022

It's time to head to the Top End and Bag a Barra. With Glenn Watty Watts, thanks to Shimano. Remember to buy local and fish local. visit shamanofish.com.au. Well, he's not in the Top End.

We've actually, he's gone across the ditch, and he's gone over to see if he can find a friend in the fridge. Watty? How are they putting up with you in New Zealand, mate? Oh, mate, it's actually been pretty good over here.

They turned the weather on for us and we've, we've had, we're just sort of finishing up 10 day trip around New Zealand about to drop our camper van off and get ready to fly back tomorrow, but we've had a crack of time, done a bit of a lap around the South Island after a couple of days. Fishing at the start of it. So it's been awesome. It's much like being.

It's like Aussies over there. It's like Australia, isn't it, or not? Oh, definitely, yeah, like we're actually just driving straight past Bunnings warehouse right now, mate. There's a lot of stuff, stone.

There's a bit of stuff that's a bit different, but yeah, you can buy veggie mite in the supermarket, so it's close to home. Hey, listen, this one question here is Mrs. Duck, I want to know about this. Is there a Kmart there? Have you seen a Kmart?

Yeah, no, we have seen Kmart, and we've done a bit of shopping here in Christchurch the last couple of days. actually get a few kiwi souvenirs, but yeah, there's there's definitely Kmart over here. Yeah, because, mate, everywhere we go, on these trips, there's always, I've got, there it came out here, oh, she loves Kmart. I think a lot of the girls like Kmart.

got some good gear. They should advertise with this Kmart. Yeah, they've got some good gear in there, the right price. Mainly, and so have you have you struck any Aussies over their holiday at this time of year?

Uh, yeah, I mean, it's actually, uh, we were quite surprised the diversity of people that were in the Caribbean past. We did a lot of free camping as well in the van and yeah, people from all over the world here at the moment, which was really cool to see again. And, of course, everywhere we went, the kiwis in the tourist stuff. They were all super keen to have everyone back again, just like we are up north there. The tourism really dropped off over here as you would know.

So, yeah, it's been pretty, pretty good, but we haven't bumped into too many other Aussies, actually. Lots of Japanese guys and Americans and stuff like that. So yeah, it's been good. It's probably because there's so many Aussies have bought caravans and they're all travelling in Australia.

They can't they can't afford to go over there. They're just using their gear here. Yeah, well that's true. And I suppose the other thing is, um, like apart from the the trout season is right now, which is sort of a driver for us to be over here a bit as well, but, um, you're probably largely travelling to New Zealand for the snow.

So, although we did see a bloody lot of snow. We saw snow virtually every day, but it's only right up the top of the mountain, sort of above 700 metres, but yeah, lock down Queenstown there now. It's all into summer mode and summer tourism, but it's a massive snow town, of course, as well. So they're probably a lot more Aussies over here during the wintertime, I'd reckon.

Yeah, and they're still on the trout. Have you done any? did you do any fishing? Yeah, we did.

So in the 1st few days, we came over and stayed at a lodge that we represent with Angling Adventures called Owen River Lodge. Uh, it's probably the premiere Trout Fishing Lodge, definitely here in the South Island, and um, yeah, they run 6 very knowledgable guides around about 40 different rivers, um, within sort of an hour and a half drive of Owen River itself, and we spent 3 days, uh, 3 nights there, 2 days of amazing fishing ride up in the high country trout streams and stuff. So, yeah, I was really different to what I'm used to, but we had a blast doing it and met some really cool people along the way too. Oh, sounds fantastic, mate.

you'd recommend it to get out. And it's good that you did it that way. You know, a lot of people do choose to do that, get over there, get themselves a mate at home and just travel and, you know, like you say, your free camp, free camp and caravan parks. Is there many free, a lot of free camping there?

Yeah, there's heaps of it. Yeah, yeah. They call it freedom camping here, and we just used the WikiCamps app, and it had absolutely no trouble finding spots, and even the sort of really popular spots. There was plenty of room, and it really, yeah, like it's a higher camper type scenario where we're in this like bright lime greens, high ace camper van, they call them juicies, and there's heaps of juicies around as well as the regular sort of motorhome.

Yeah, right. I haven't seen them up north, but yeah, right. Yeah, you see them, you see them in it. I've seen them in Australia all over the place, yeah.

So there you go. So there's another rot going on that we didn't know about. Juicy campers, eh? There you go.

And just quickly. So, do they, what about in regards to facilities and these places that are free camping? they accommodate, because I know when you, I know, not so much New South Wales, I know in WA and Northern territory in particular, and parts of Queensland, where they really do accommodate the, you know, the free camping, because they know that it brings people into their state and then eventually they've his money spent in, you know, shops and fuel and everything else. Do they do they accommodate for the free camper? Are they good setups?

Yeah, they are. Even the ones that you'd probably consider sort of quite remote, and it's tied in with the hunting and fishing or hunting and fishing authorities over here as well, where they'll have like your free camping spot, which is generally access to a river, and you know, every go around every corner, it's a bloody postcard shot there. But yeah, hunting and fishing access sort of in the same areas largely and they have, they have portable dunnies at the, um, a lot of them where they must come through with the truck and clean them out every, every week or something and um, quite often they'll have a dump point close by as well as dump points everywhere. And yeah, I mean, so a lot of these joints are set up just for powered powered sites for campers.

So, yeah, they really do cater to it. A lot of money in tourism over here, of course, and the hunting and fishing stuff. It's good to see them reinvesting it, which is great. Yeah, absolutely. It is.

It's fantastic. And I'm tipping, there'd be plenty of kiwis, you know, probably like here, just travelling domestically and travelling around in their own country and looking around where normally they might take off overseas. I know where we are right now. There's so many people here using their van for the 1st time and people that would normally be somewhere else, but they've bought themselves a van.

I know that's happening all over the country. In fact, it could be happening everywhere. So, there you go. All right, Watty, well, we'll let you let you go and then take in the last bit of that holiday over there and we'll catch you back in the Top End next week.

Yeah, that's right. I'll be back up north and it's been raining up there a lot, so I'll be actually really keen to perhaps get out for a fish in the next couple weeks myself. But yeah, if anyone wants to suss out any trout fishing in New Zealand, we've got the best lodge in the country over here, on the books at Angling Adventures, so we can, we can sort that right out and I'll, I'll even tell you the secret fly you need to tie on if you'd be really nice to me. Oh, you're a good geez, you just do good.

I've got to say that some of the bottle-os up there in the Top End will be relieved today you're on your way home. They've been struggling since you left. I reckon, yeah, that's right. I'll go and make sure they know I'm home and then they'll be right.

Oh, mate, they've just, they couldn't work what the downturn was at 1st and then they realised what he had left the country. All right. You'll be back and I'm sure you'll make up for it when you get back up there. talk to you next week.

Right away, mate. Good on you. Enjoy your holiday too. We will, mate.

That is for sure. That, of course, is, Glenn. What do you want? Angling adventures and Barefoot Fishing Safaris.

Well, tell you a bit more about angling adventures next week with Watty, and so that way, if you want to go to New Zealand fishing, well, you can just book with Watty, he'll sort the whole thing out for you. How good is it? So we'll tell you all about that next week with Watty and you go on some of these fishing adventures.