A month prior to flying to New Zealand Amelia & I were doing some hill sprinting in the snow at a golf course back home in Red Deer. We like to try to stay in shape. At the end of the work out, the last hill of course, I felt a blast of pain shoot up my right calf, like a zipper of pain coiling up. I couldn't walk. I tried my best the next month to walk, but it hurt to do a lot of different motions. When we arrived in New Zealand, the first few weeks were brutal. My right knee doubled in size and the calf was still sore. Whatever I did was not getting much better. I simply couldn't walk the distances we normally do, but I tried. And the knee was simply just there to swing my leg... kind of a jelly feel. Some days were simply hopeless for the pain, others for the numbness and weak feel.
About the time I finally clued in and had the means to do so - I started icing and taking Voltaren (thanks to our friends here who happen to be in the medicine field) Amelia took a nasty tumble while crossing a paddock. She was putting the electric fence back up, turned, and took a step. That step landed in a grass covered hole that had a hidden, old post. All I know is that I turned around to hear her writhing in pain. She was hurt pretty good and the bruise just kept getting sexier to look at over the next week or two.
We fished, we made do, we struggled physically to keep going, but we did. The fishing was ok those first few weeks. Actually quite good but when you are struggling physically, you know you just aren't on top of it all.
AJ got better, the ice and Voltaren started to work a little, and just as we were ready to roll, the weather hit. For a month. Literally 4 weeks of every 18 to 36 hrs a major front of 100 - 600mm. 2 vertical feet of rain in 20 hours is stunning to see the effects of. But this is New Zealand and there is always a place to fish, and we did quite well. But the trip continued to be a Brer. We kept swinging, kept taking a best stab, best jab. Never quite on top of it. The trip was going well, it just didn't have the feel of any rhythm.
It was during a big rain event that we decided to take a couple of days to hike and raft with our friends. And that's when my big break through came. We hiked to a mountain top one day and I had been stretching out my knee, my calf, and trying to get loose. On our way down the mountain I decided to give my knee all it could handle. I ran down the mountain. Literally. And my knee loosened up, big time. It was ironic: I hurt my leg sprinting up hill in the snow at home; my leg instantly felt better running down hill in summer in New Zealand. And it has been pretty much 100% since. Who knew?
We set out for our latest jaunt 3 weeks ago from our friends' place. We left in a heck of a rain storm that turned to a dump of wet snow as we drove across the tops. The rivers were high, muddy. 2 days later, it was 30C and the past 2 - 3 weeks have been an amazing run of weather. The trip that had zero rhythm changed that day. Like any good cutthroat trout stream at home, these New Zealand trout need a good run of fine weather to get going, to get in their rhythm. And in turn, our trip has a solid rhythm to it. So much so that today, a cloudy day (dare we say finally!), we're back at our friends' place. Amelia's baking banana bread, we'll have a jug of coffee, and sometime after lunch we'll head down to the local river to fish a 2km side channel for a soft, 'off' day. Tomorrow is a heavy rain day so we'll finally take a day off the water and maybe do a little more blogging, sharing more shots like these. Of course, if you want to see more photos and are on Facebook, check out our Jensen Fly Fishing Facebook Page.
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