The whitebait were running and a debt was due, writes Stephen Jaquiery.
It has taken more than 30 years, but I think the kindness my Uncle Les showed me when I was just a lad is well on its way to being repaid.
It was 1979 and I was 17. I had a push-bike for transport, blond hair to contrast with the Central Otago-tanned legs that protruded from my shorts, and a load of apprehension about a new job as a junior photographer with the Otago Daily Times. And my Dunedin-based uncle, Les Hodges, took me under his wing.
Although he had a house full of his own children, I boarded with Uncle Les and his family for several months as I eased into life in the city. It was a cool time, too.
Aunty Marion's cooking was fantastic. Uncle Les was, and still is, a great chap with whom to spend time. He doesn't have a nasty bone in his body and is always doing interesting stuff, such as keeping bees, breeding tropical fish and even building an ocean-going yacht in the basement.
Back then, I looked forward to Sunday mornings when Uncle Les would pack Aunty Marion and the five kids off to church and I had the house to myself. (Don't tell Mum; she thought I was at church also, but instead I would stretch out on the floor and watch English soccer while salivating over the lovely smells of Sunday roast cooking.)These days after an infrequent visit to see him, I'll chide myself on the way home that I don't drop in more often. Uncle Les is that sort of fellow.
Helping Uncle Les make the wooden bunks that fit into the curved inside of a yacht spurred an interest in home handyman work, and the uneven nature of yachts was a perfect learning ground for fixing up the crooked turn-of-the-century project in which I live now.
As a polytech teacher, he also encouraged me to attend his woodwork night classes, in which I built my own multi-hulled two-person yacht.
Fast-forward to 2012.
Uncle Les was getting into whitebaiting and told me that his ''silly dream'' would be to win Lotto and spend the winnings on a West Coast whitebait stand. He called it a silly dream because he doesn't do Lotto.
For a few years, three (slightly older) mates and I have made an annual pilgrimage to the Okuru River, just south of Haast, where we stay at the riverside hut of the very generous John and Ellie Murray and whitebait on their stand for a week.
We have not caught much, but despite that always have a great time.
Unfortunately, not long after the 2011 trip to the coast one of the mates, Jim (John Murry's brother), died. That was a very sad time, but before the next whitebaiting season John and Ellie invited us back and we had a spare seat in the car, so I invited my Uncle Les.
I think there may have been a tear in his eye as he accepted.
The whitebaiting trip of 2012 was great. Uncle Les soaked it all in like a Labrador dog hoovering in smells from a kitchen. He told me later that he thought he was destined to spend the rest of his life on the sofa, and he was locking all the sights and experiences into his mind to enjoy them over again later in life.
We played up for him a bit. Gave him port at night (he doesn't normally drink). And stopped beside the Haast River on the way to the coast to pan-fry quinnat salmon fillets, caught that morning at Makarora, over an open fire, serving them in slabs of bread with butter, pretending we always did it like that.
About then I think I noticed that tear was back in his eye.
The hut on the Okuru River is pretty neat too.
An old coal range with a wetback provides heat and hot water. There is a gas fridge and cooker, a sofa bed, table and just about enough room for four fellas to stretch out in sleeping bags. Actually, it was three chaps in sleeping bags and one with an unzipped sleeping bag covering him as best it could.
Uncle Les could not fit into his. He had long struggled with his weight, which had not improved as he became less active after retirement. At his worst, he reckoned he would sneak out of bed in the middle of the night and eat frozen pies from the freezer.
This is where the story takes a turn.
Despite having a great trip in 2012, we did not catch much whitebait. But my dear old Uncle Les was so inspired by the trip and the promise of being invited back that he stuck to the first diet that had worked for him for years.
It is a fairly trendy diet overseas at present, and quite simple - you eat only every second day. (I'm sure nutritionists will not be impressed.)It worked splendidly well for Uncle Les.
By the time it came to pack the car for this year's trip, he was 25kg lighter. He could fit into his sleeping bag, he could zip up his coat, buckle the straps on a lifejacket, and felt better about himself than he had for 30 years.
As a diabetic, his insulin intake had halved and he was ready to head off on the highlight of his year.
This year the whitebait were elusive again.
We had use of the best stand on the best river, on which earlier in the season John and Ellie landed 60kg of the white gold in one tide. However, the run stopped just before we arrived.
This did not dampen our trip at all.
Half-asleep in the sun this year, listening to birdsong and enjoying the ever-changing light, Uncle Les purred: ''It is hard to imagine that there is a trouble anywhere in the world''.
And his final conclusion as our laden ute crawled back over the pass, leaving the 2013 whitebait trip as a sweet memory?
''Stephen, that was worth every meal I missed.''
