Couple this with the odd stray fish pellet from co-joining salmon farms and suddenly we are capable of growing fish you wouldn't want to meet in a dark-sky alley. As the canals are never allowed to flood, the aqua habitat of grasses and weeds remains intact to create the world's best trout restaurant. You see, the 56km of canals that were carefully crafted to link lakes to turbines, and thus our power supply, have over time become the perfect habitat to allow these fish to expand their range and girth to world-beating proportions. Perhaps it's also this clear alpine air above that not only gives a much better connection to the universe but is also somehow linked to creating rainbow and brown trout that can at times look more professional wrestler than fish. To experience this in person is to stir feelings of our place in the universe, and I can't help but wonder if people might think differently about life itself if more could glimpse their own insignificance demonstrated here so clearly above. After dark, it seems littered with a milky sea of stars and planets, a view obscured almost everywhere else in the world. The Aoraki Mackenzie reserve was recognised as the world's largest dark sky sanctuary in 2012 and strict rules are now in place where extraneous light such as from streetlights are kept low and minimised to enable people to crane their necks and marvel at the night-skies above. Being such a new place in such clear air gave it the added advantage of recognising early the beauty of the night skies above and then acting to protect them from light pollution. Today, the Tekapo district provides a platform for all sorts of extra-curricular pursuits, from boating, hiking, biking, night-sky viewing and of coursefishing. Little did anyone know during those early construction days, that the environment they were creating would then go on to produce the largest trout on the planet. This admiration comes into sharp focus driving around the sweeping bend that brings Lake Pūkaki and a distant canal into view for the first time.
Clarke Gayford with his personal best 16.1 pound rainbow trout, caught in Twizel's canals.
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