Ten women who have been affected by cancer will have the opportunity to cast a fishing line on the river during the region’s annual Casting for Recovery weekend retreat.
Women have until the end of this month to add their application into the pool, with names randomly selected for a weekend at the Eleven Owen River Lodge near Murchison. A committee member for the programme in the Top of the South, Helen Clements, had her name selected four years ago and says it is a weekend for women to be pampered as well as benefit from the therapeutic action of fly fishing if they have had full or partial mastectomies.
“It’s just a beautiful retreat weekend for anyone who has ever had breast cancer – a good pampering weekend. We have volunteer fly fishermen who take the women out on the river and you go up these gorgeous valleys which you have never been to before and try and catch a fish. It was really amazing.”
While the catch-and-release fly fishing is therapeutic in its own way, the rest of the weekend is all about being pampered, which may include nails, makeup and spas, so that women go home feeling relaxed, she says.
“All women go away feeling elated. They don’t have to cook and they’ve made new friends - some just need to get away and have some time for themselves. I went home and had to make my own cup of tea!”
The lodge donates accommodation and food for the weekend and all women are fitted with waders and gumboots for their fly-fishing excursion on the river. Applications can be made through the group’s facebook page: facebook.com/castingforrecoverynzsouthisland
