Day out with ...
BEAVER, ROX AND SOME WHITEBAIT
It could be argued that Stephen Donald, aka Beaver, is New Zealand’s most iconic whitebaiter. As the legend (and reality) goes, after being left out of the All Blacks squad for the 2011 Rugby World Cup he took to the river and went whitebaiting.
After a string of All Black injuries, he was called back. Literally called on the phone, which he didn’t answer first time around as he was busy hauling in whitebait.
But when contact was finally made, he rushed to Auckland in time to make that RWC-winning kick. Criticised in the past for his All Black misses, Beaver was suddenly a national hero.
So yes, some things are more important than whitebait. Not many, but some.
Aside from being a rugby legend and expert Waikato whitebaiter – he’s been pursuing the translucent treats since his teenage years – Beaver is also a Holden ambassador.
That is how we’ve come to drive Holden’s largest ute to catch New Zealand’s smallest fish, with the help of Waiuku’s most famous resident. And that’s official: the town’s home rugby ground was renamed Beaver Park in his RWC honour.
The Holden Colorado Rox we’ve met before.
A one-off designed to be the ultimate off-road Colorado, it rides on massive 35-inch mud tyres and was built in collaboration with RVE in Auckland.
Many of the parts are bespoke: the carbon fibre bonnet was created with a bit of CAD expertise and even the bumpers are unique.
So no, you can’t buy a Rox or even buy the bits to make your own. It’s simply a showcase for Holden New Zealand.
But it’s not a show car. Holden NZ is determined to drive the vehicle all around the country, which is why it’s fully road legal.
Our trip from Auckland to Waiuku takes a little diversion onto a farm for some off-road work.
It’s not my first drive in the Rox; we did that briefly in June when it was just completed. But it is my first chance to do some decent distance.
It’s a lot more of a handful on the road than a regular Colorado and it’s not easy to see around that massive bonnet bulge at times – although the Rox’s extra 200-millimetre ride height certainly helps with the view.
But it’s not terrifying either and negotiates narrow country roads with a reasonable degree of aplomb.
Off-road, it lopes up steep slopes and through the mud as effortlessly as you’d expect.
Approach and departure angles are astronomical and this is home territory for those Black Bear tyres, which were the starting point for the project.
Not that I was going for broke: this is an irreplaceable one-off worth an unspecified six-figure sum of money (I’m not even sure the first number is a ‘‘1’’), so it’s easy does it.
But he still goes above and beyond, by being incredibly generous with his time, home (breakfast, brilliant), boat and river bach.
More about the latter in a minute. But we start at the Port Waikato end of Kariotahi Beach.
Beaver is in a wetsuit up to his waist in the water, net in hand. I am
. . . there also. Assisting with the buts that involve staying dry. Beaver doesn’t seem to mind.
Those sans boat or bach opt for beach whitebaiting. Beaver has both but says he still enjoys it on the sand. ‘‘You feel like you’re working a bit more for it. And the requirement to be on your stand at all times on the river can be a drawback.’’
We do get some whitebait from the beach: six. Not six kilograms. Six whitebait.
‘‘A bad day’s fishing is that you get a couple of fish,’’ says Beaver. ‘‘A bad day’s whitebaiting is that you spend hours getting nothing at all.’’
Onwards to the Waikato River, where we travel up to a stand owned by Beaver’s mate Dougie.
In fact Dougie comes too, bringing his own boat to help ferry people and gear.
Call me innocent, but I’m staggered by the number of stands and baches along the water, many of them accessible only by boat. There are battles over territory, but there’s also a feeling of co-operation and community.
Dougie’s stand is reassuringly solid and has the look and feel of a miniature Waikato pub, complete with serving hatch and bar table inside. Long hours waiting for the bait, right?
We do get a bit of the whitebaiting-waiting experience (sans the beers) but after few ‘‘lifts’’ in the middle of the day there are indeed fish in the bucket.
Then it’s back down the river to a bach co-owned (and co-built) by Beaver and some of his mates, complete with glass doors from his old Waiuku pub, The Wolf and Beaver.
We break out the gas hotplate while Beaver breaks out the eggs and lemon.
Two decades of whitebaiting have also made him a dab hand in the patty department. We enjoy the fritters with deeply unfashionable bread of the purest white – the only correct way to have a whitebait sandwich.