“What is whitebait?” I hear you ask.
From wikipedia:
“Whitebait are tender and edible, and can be regarded as a delicacy. The entire fish is eaten including head, fins and gut. Some species make better eating than others, and the particular species that are marketed as “whitebait” varies in different parts of the world.
[…]
“New Zealand whitebait are caught in the lower reaches of the rivers using small open-mouthed hand-held nets although in some parts of the country where whitebait are more plentiful, larger (but not very large) set nets may be used adjacent to river banks. Whitebaiters constantly attend the nets in order to lift them as soon as a shoal enters the net. Otherwise the whitebait quickly swim back out of the net. […] The combination of the fishing controls, a limited season and the depletion of habitat as a result of forest felling during the era of colonisation results in limited quantities being available on the market. Also, a lack of shade over waterways has been shown to kill the whitebait eggs.”
The more you know!
You know why New Zealand feels like home? It’s because all the same people are here! We hung out with (brother) Tyson and (brother’s partner) Gillian in Wellington, where Tyson’s doing an internship at Weta Digital. And then in Picton, we were visited by (friend of the kommune) Aaron and (former roommate) Meghan, who are cycling around the South Island. Just before that, Janelle hopped up to North Island to visit her parents, who flew over from Australia, and once we ship the retina-ready version of a certain iPad app, Hendrik will meet up with his dad, visiting from Germany. It’s a chain of “You’re going to New Zealand, huh? You know, I kind of wanted to go there…”
The glamourous life of an itinerant iOS developer.
An actual display in the Te Papa museum in Wellington. I sometimes think the late twentieth century was something NZ only heard about second-hand. And that’s what makes it so charming.
Hendrik and I headed out from the marina yesterday to spend the day hiking the Queen Charlotte Track. This is the marina that morning, where we set out the the trailhead by water taxi. Hard to believe the previous day there was a storm that stopped pretty much all sea and air traffic on the Cook Straight.
Though once we started slogging through the mud and broken trees, it became a bit easier to believe. Beautiful hike, though.
