FLYLIFE^9T
he further you walk the more
removed you should become
from society and all its trappings.
A few hours is usually enough to
enjoy relative wilderness, and a
day’s walk all but guarantees it.
There is, therefore, a certain irony in
spending nearly two days walking in
to a river that receives almost daily
heli-fishing attention. And yet that’s
just what Tim Angeli and I did last
December.
Some plans are born of muttered
utterances of distant rivers filled with
big trout, secrets shared amongst
friends. Yet others are the result of
scouring maps and walking on a
whim. But this was different. We’d
always known about the Rangitikei.
To be fair, everyone does: it’s legend-
ary in the annals of New Zealand
fly fishing history. I’d dreamed of its
emerald pools and unmatched clar-
ity, of wily trout and long inspections.
I knew I had to fish it. What I didn’t
know was how I would get there.
I took my first helicopter trip in
April 2016 whilst filming an episode
of Pure Fly NZ. Choppering in was
novel, exciting and it allowed us to
access water we simply couldn’t have
got to in the time period we had avail-
able. And yet, I couldn’t help feeling
as though I’d cheated. I felt I hadn’t
earned it.
And with that, there was really only
one option for getting into the Ran-
gitikei – to walk. Tim and I already
had plans for a week-long mission in
the works, so when he expressed an
interest in the Rangitikei a plan was
born. Months of research, scouring
topo maps, chatting with folk who had
fished it, ordering our Backcountry
Cuisines and deliberating whether it
would be feasible to carry in a bottle
of Lagavulin (it was – Tim carried it)
brought us to mid-December and the
Rusty Nail backpackers in Taihape. To
our astonishment, in the midst of what
was the worst season I’ve ever experi-
enced, we’d been granted a near per-
fect forecast for the week. Tomorrow
it would begin.THE LONG HARD WALK
With a hearty breakfast of two pies a
piece, and packs bordering on oppres-
sive, local guide Russell Anderson
dropped us at the trailhead with a
promise to meet us back here in one
weeks time, cold beer in hand. All that
we needed we carried on our backs as
we began the immediate ascent to the
tops. After several hours of cresting
ridges and dropping into valleys, only
to repeat the process, we arrived at
an alien landscape, barren, and with a
thick blanket of fog clinging to every
crevice. At this point the poled route
disappeared and we spent a fruitless
half hour with just 20 metres of visi-
bility searching for the fleck of orange
that would mark our route. Eventu-
ally, having decided to put our faith in
a small electronic arrow on our GPS
unit, we descended through the fog to
the comforting sight of a line of poles
stretching into the distance.
It was only now, having come out of
the fog, that we became aware of the
sheer scale of our landscape. As far
as the eye could see ahead of us was
dominated by sub-alpine tussock-land
with an occasional tree holding fast in
the sheltered heads of valleys. We fol-
lowed a small creek for several hours,
before climbing a hill so steep that
we gave it a four-letter name not fit
for publication. Our campsite waited
welcomingly for us by a small creek
in an expansive valley at the base of
XXXX Hill. Upon arrival we quickly
set about pitching tents in the lee of
a small hummock before tucking into
the delicacy of a dehydrated ‘roast
chicken’ dinner. Pleasures are simple
in such places.
We rose with the light and began
our final climb on to the tops, which
we followed all morning before drop-Jack Kós
tackles the
Upper Rangitikei
on foot.
Home, for a couple of nights at least.
Tim Angeli shoulders his pack.Broad, expansive landscapes ran as far as the eye could see.