Who would have thought 14 hours of fishing could be so fun? Well...for me...

So today, our last full day in the South Island. And I spent 14 hours of it fishing, well watching Eddie fish, and it was one of the nicest days that I have had so far this entire trip. Yesterday on the bus ride home from Milford Sound, Eddie was talking to the lady that drove our tour bus and mentioned that he was hoping to do some fishing around the area that we were passing through on the drive, about an hour outside of Queenstown. She just offered to give us a lift today back to that spot and pick us up on the return of the people doing Milford Sound today. For free, even after we offered to pay. That bus fare would have normally cost us at least 60 dollars each! So we were up and on the bus by 8:15 this morning, got dropped off at "Stu's Fly Shop" precisely in the middle of nowhere. Eddie got his licence and looked at some 1500 dollar fishing rods. He was like a boy in a candy shop. Then we hiked about an hour away to get to the Mataura River, one of the most famous fly fishing rivers in New Zealand. And what comes along with the most famous fly fishing river in New Zealand? Fisherman. Quite a few of them. So we had to hike another hour just to get far enough away from them and so that Eddie coulds feel like he was the only person in the world. We found the spot, many many of them. I have never seen Eddie as happy as he was today. He says that he was even more happy 2 Fridays ago, but I dunno, he was in cloud nine. All the way that we were hiking upstream to get away from the other fishermen, they told us that they were seeing quite a few fish but were not able to get any bites at all. That same story came from many people. But after 5 hours of fishing, do you think that Eddie was discouraged? Heck no, he caught the big one, it was a 600 lb brown trout he told me to write....no more like 1.75 kg really. It was a beaut (as Clarke Griswald would say...). I played papparazzi for that fish for a while and we got some great shots...proof....evidence. Eddie said that it was his goal to come to New Zealand and catch one fish. Well, that's alot of money to spend to catch one fish, but the look on his face was worth it! Most of the day I spent suntanning on the flowery banks of the river, waking up every 30 minutes or so when Eddie wanted to change spots. He is very protective over here and won't let me go to sleep in the middle of nowhere, in my bathing suit...go figure. My goal for today was to get back that suntan that escaped from my possession 2 weeks ago. I succeeded, well, I tried a little too hard and purposely "forgot" the suntan lotion, so I am crispy and so is Eddie. It was all worth it though to see how happy he was today. We both just couldn't get over the backdrop of the sites that he was fishing. It was beyond description. That's why it's so nice to have him here, we don't have to try and explain it to each other, we just turn the corners and look at each other and smile.

Off to Auckland tomorrow afternoon so you may not hear anything until we are in LA. We wonder why we ever signed up for that. It seems so silly after all of this. Oh well. 4 more days to put off doing school work is how I look at it. Looking forward to my own bed in 5 more sleeps.

Mom -What did you mean by your were just joking about asking me what I would like for dinner my first night home? You don't want to know? Or were you teasing? Turkey, gravy and vegetables...cheesecake....& milk (I have honestly not had one sip of milk since December 26, 2006...last year). I am scared of it here. AND THEN FOR THE MAIN COURSE....

XOOXOOXO