We have arrived in one of our favorite towns: Orepuki. Those of you following our travels may remember this town. It is hardly a town: 43 people on a big weekend, one pub, one cafe. Gasoline (“petrol” here) is 30 minutes away, nearest small grocery store, same. The nearest supermarket is in Invercargill, almost an hour away; the pub, however, supplies necessities like milk and TP. Orepuki is on the south coast of the south island; nothing between us and Antarctica. So it tends to be cold and windy a lot of the time.
Some of the trees are sculptures of beautiful hardship; bent and stooped by wind. We are making a trek out to New Zealand’s third largest island: Stewart Island. Stewart Island is a gem that we did not want to miss. Last time we were in the area, Stewart Island was all but closed down because the hours were too short and it would be cold: even closer to Antarctica. Stewart Island is almost all undisturbed native bush and beautiful coastline. We are looking forward to this trip.
In the meantime we are spending a few days with our friends in Orepuki. As with the last time we visited, town people had lots of activities we could join. We were invited to go floundering and codding. Evidently in New Zealand, it is not enough to just go “fishing,” you name your intended fish. We joined in on a floundering expedition.
This entailed driving right down onto the beach with a trailer and gear. The gear was a homemade net about the size and shape of a tennis net. Actually I suspect a tennis net would make an excellent flounder net. It is held upright by two guys, each at an end, holding the support sticks that spread out the narrow end of the net.
They drag the net parallel to the beach through the surf. Hopefully it scooped up some of these flat fish. In a good drag we should get 30 or more fish. Well we didn’t. We got one little guy.
Next drag we got two more. More drags, but no more fish. Holding this long net upright and walking against the current is hard work. After 6 or so lengths of several hundred meters, the guys called it a day. We tourists were following along on the beach in the 4wd. Our job was to collect the fish and as it turned out, that was an easy job.
The reason we were floundering was to collect fish to be a raffle prize at the upcoming bowls tournament sponsored by the local bowls club. Because we only caught 3 (2.5 really), we decided to just eat them ourselves. One of the other bowling club members caught 30 or more; those got donated to the raffle. Flounder is a flat fish that lives on the sandy ocean bottom. Like a halibut. It tastes like halibut too: white delicate meat. Just a bit messy to filet with a fish the size of a dinner plate, on your dinner plate. Other seafood raffle prizes were whitebait (tiny fish that are made into paddies and a serious delicacy in NZ), 4 large live lobsters (called “Crayfish” here), blue cod and plenty other fresh fish, I couldn’t name, plus abalone (called “paua”). On the other side of the raffle were about 20 packages of cuts of meat: bacon, venison, and locally grown lamb, beef and whatnot. No one is going home hungry after this tournament.
Bowls is a popular game in New Zealand. It is similar to bocci, but the ball is not completely round, and weighted so that it really curves. It may be exactly the same game as lawn bowling, I am just not sure, I don’t know lawn bowling. The tournament was really popular with teams from as far away as the middle of the south island; probably 20 or more teams. My guess is the draw is the seafood up for auction.
We noticed there is really no special footwear for this sport: folks were wearing all manner of shoes, sneakers and jandals (“flip-flops”). The only footwear missing was gum boots, which is the most common footwear to be found anywhere else, even pubs and shops. All over NZ we see signs asking people to leave their muddy boots at the door, so then you see folks with socks walking through the stores and restaurants. All the time.
I was interested to see the “green” because the turf is unique. The turf (my word, not what they call it) is a tiny broadleaf plant. Cotula (Leptinella dioca), a small native herb that forms a very compact mat. It looks like a mini dichondra. It is treated like grass, cut short so it grows virtually no stem, and then rolled until it is flat as a pancake. Makes for a really fast natural surface. This plant is native to Orepuki. Just another thing Orepuki would be famous for, if Orepuki was famous
It is Lawn Bowls.