Our Big Adventure

Well, it dawned on us this afternoon that we've been living in beautiful Matheson Bay for about 2 weeks now, but since moving here haven't been down to the beach or even gone fishing!!
The weather wasn't up to a fish, so we decided to go for a wander down to the beach.


This very useful sign pointed us in the right direction - and hinted of the possibility of dolphins at the beach! This would turn out to be nothing more than a rumor.
We ventured down the track (being the adventurous explorers that we are) and within minutes we were at the beach.


This photo is here to make you all jealous.

But not content with just discovering the beach (which has no dolphins), our explorers venture further - boldly going where only a handful of tourists and some fisho's had been before.


I couldn't help myself. Here is the obligatory arty photo of stuff washed up on a beach. This format works just as well with driftwood and that foamy stuff on west coast beaches ;-)


That's Little Barrier Island! And regardless of what Todd says, it IS smaller than Great Barrier Island. It looks bigger coz' it's closer!! Doffus.


Heres another photo of it, coz' it's so amazing :-) One day soon we will go there in our wee boat. With any luck we'll also come back in our wee boat.


Damn it was swelly!! This is why we were exploring and not out there fishing. Mushy peas anyone? ;-)


There were heeeeaps of rock pools. Our explorers spent ages looking for critters in all of the pools.

Now, many people have asked me, "Liam, how did you and your brother become the most successful fishermen in New Zealand?" Well, here is the answer...


We always scout out an area thoroughly before fishing there. This way we can see what lives there and what the local fish are likely to eat. We also soak our bait in rum & coke.... and if that fails we just use dynamite and then pretend we caught the fish.


It would seem the fish around here eat Kina! They were everywhere!! This is good news for us coz' Kina is the favourite food of the Snapper (along with Pilchards, Squid, Mussels, Bonito, Sausages, Sandwiches, Bits of string and old tinfoil).
So it goes without saying we will be returning when the weather improves to gather fresh Kina for a snapper mission (anyone that says Kina are good to eat has a sick sense of humor and is pulling your leg).

More reports from our intrepid explorers when the weather improves.
:-)

So much death and carnage :(

Move house yesterday and moved the 3ft Tropical tank as planned.

The day of trauma started when the starter on the flouro light failed and we arrived at the old house to discover the light flashing on and off, fish looking quite unhappy :(

Waited for an hour or so for them to get over their first traumatic experience and then removed fish and put them in a chillibin with about 5 litres of water (and an airstone) - Was quite a drama getting them out of the tank.
Transported just over half the water to the new house in plastic tanks.

Moved aquarium, water, and chillibin of fish to new house (Brother was cradling the chillibin to stop it sloshing and we did the whole trip at 40-50 kph... sorry to anyone in the Leigh area that may have been stuck behind us :S )
Reassembled the tank, put in old water and new water (rain water so no chlorine etc) and checked pH and temp. etc. Introduced fish to their new home but quite a lot of them were looking poorly, all of the Golden barbs were milling near the surface, gills quite red, and most of the glow lights were looking quite distressed.

This morning one of the Golden Barbs had died, and 9 of the glow lights. I removed them from the tank and conducted the traditional porcelain ceremony.
By lunch time today all of the barbs had passed away :( :(
The rest of the fish are looking ok, schooling well and swimming around. The neons seem to have weathered it quite well, but the poor ol' barbs and glow lights didn't take too well to the move.
Alas poor Barbs, I knew them well...
I think it'll be a long time before I decide to move the tank again!!