No honour amongst fishermen

This is Rich, who was beaming with the double delight of a warm, sunny afternoon and the triumph of having caught two fine brown trout. Or so he claimed, at least. I was impressed, not just with the size of the fish, but the fact that he caught them right in the city, within earshot of traffic and against a background of skyscrapers.

Looking the other way, though, the lake looked like the Pacific Ocean, stretching clear and turquoise all the way to the horizon. Beautiful.

Rich was anxious that people here had treated me well, and was pleased to hear that everyone I'd met had been friendly, helpful and sincerely flattering about New Zealand. "They're lightening up again now it's getting warmer," he said, "after the winter we've had." (On the gates of the marina jetties there are signs forbidding both swimming and ice-skating, which strikes me as pretty unique.)

And then we shook hands and he went back to his fishing, me still impressed with his catch - until I met his mate further along the shore, who told me with great indignation that the bigger fish was his. Fishermen, eh? Untrustworthy the world over.