Sheep graze contentedly on the other side of the Mataura River, a popular fishing spot In the morning, I get lost in traffic and miss the turnoff to the coast. I don’t even make it into the city, but from what I can see, Invercargill looks just like the inner suburbs of Melbourne - Malvern perhaps, flat and comfortable, with older Federation style homes set in generous gardens. I eventually come out near the estuarine coast of the Mataura River, where there are 400 hectares of tidal flats teeming with fish. Toetoes Bay, where the river meets the sea, was already a popular fishing spot and a place of permanent settlement for the Maori, long before the arrival of Europeans. It was also an important trading centre for surrounding tribes where poumani (greenstone) from the west, stone from Central Otago and obsidian from the north were traded. Today, the region is regarded as New Zealand’s biggest brown trout fishery (a more successful introduction)....
Practising Geographer - nature culture places people