A boat crossing from Bluff to Stewart Island runs through Foveaux Strait, the source of New Zealand’s most famous oyster, before a day on the water dredging and diving for the catch. Dinner is back at Stewart Island Lodge, where the kitchen works from its own herb garden and glasshouse alongside whatever’s come off the boat that day, salmon, oysters, crayfish, with informal dress and a relaxed, family-run atmosphere.

Kaikōura takes its name from the Māori for “to eat crayfish,” and a morning on a charter boat hunting for the namesake catch is followed by a stay at Hapuku Lodge, where treehouses sit ten metres up in a kānuka grove between the Seaward Kaikōura Range and the Pacific. The kitchen, run by chef Fiona Read, cooks the day’s crayfish alongside venison from the lodge’s own deer farm.

A day spent diving and fishing in Queen Charlotte Sound, home to most of New Zealand’s Greenshell mussel farms and king salmon, ends at Bay of Many Coves, a five-star resort reachable only by boat or the Queen Charlotte Track. Guests are encouraged to catch their own fish, and the kitchen will cook it however you like that evening.

A morning cruise on Saffire Freycinet’s private vessel out to the oyster leases of Great Oyster Bay ends with waders on and a table set directly among the beds, fresh Pacific oysters shucked to order and served with Tasmanian sparkling. Saffire itself, overlooking the pink-granite Hazards, is where the catch is turned into dinner.

A rock lobster charter out of Augusta, where the Blackwood River meets Flinders Bay near the Cape Leeuwin lighthouse, brings the day’s catch back to Injidup Spa Retreat, perched on the clifftop above Injidup Beach. Each villa has its own plunge pool and kitchenette, and the lodge’s chef will prepare a four-course dinner from the catch, served in the villa as the sun goes down over the Indian Ocean.