Roaring Lion
I’m just back from a week fly fishing in the rugged Roaring Lion tributary of the South Island’s Karamea River with my good friend, Tapio. It was truly a trip of a lifetime with extremes of tough tramping, big fish and typical high country weather. Thanks to Syd for getting us to the edge of the Tasman Wilderness Area (no tracks, trails, huts or helicopters permitted within).
The river is aptly named with the flash flood that interrupted our fishing on Day 4 creating a deafening cacophony punctuated by rockfalls and lifting the river level up a metre in only a few minutes, turning the gin-clear water into a malt-brown maelstrom. Fortuitously we were on the right side of the river to get back to camp. The third of the photos below shows the river a day later - almost back to normal flow and colour, and with a 9 hr tramp (remember no tracks) between the two sets of shots.
