A few weeks ago I had my fall break from Uni. What better way to spend a week off than hunting? Three other friends and I made a plan to hit the mountains for the week.

Thursday night we did the 8 hour drive up to Murchison. Since we would be hunting on some of my friends families property, we did a little work for his uncles, who own the property. They own a goldmine, so we spent the morning hours helping them out.



Since the families private land was being hunted at the moment, we decided to check another area. We loaded up for a few days and headed out. Climbed to the top of a ridge at just under 1000 meters. The weather was hot, and there were some very steep areas.

Brent checking the topo:


Trudging:


Beech Forest:


Cliff ledge:


Some views from the ridge:




We went down the backside, do an open spot along a stream. We made this our base camp for the next day, and glassed from right outside the tents.



One of the many bush robins that came to check us out:


We explored the area a bit, only to find it had been hit pretty hard. You can hunt year around in NZ, so many areas have constant pressure. We decided to cut our losses and walk out. We didn’t want to go back over the mountain, so we decided we would walk out through the river bottom of the valley. The problem was it ran off the topo, so we didn’t really know how long it would take to get out. Stupid idea. We broke camp and headed downstream at 2pm. An hour in we found some goats, and Brent shot a young one, which I took the meat off. Excited to get bloodied:


The trip turned out to be pretty hellish. The NZ bush isn’t easy stuff to go through, and we ran into problems. We weren’t out by sunset, put donned ou headlamps and kept pushing. There was no trail, so we were mostly going blind. Stupid. We got caught on a few ledges 80 feet up, in the dark. We had a few close calls, and finally decided to try to walk out by going down the stream. This worked until we came to a gorge. We were soaked, bloody, tired and pissed, so we made camp.



Fresh goat:


We awoke the next morning and did the final few hours out. We were glad to get out and looking forward to hitting Brent’s families property.

We headed to Brent’s grandmothers house to repack for out longer adventure:



Each of our bags was 50-65 lbs.


We drove to the valley and headed in:




I tried to teach Mark to flyfish. He has some work to do.




We camped along the river that night.


Then continued upstream the next morning. The total distance to the hut was about 16kilometers. Elliot and Brent taking a break:


The hut is at the end of the rainbow:




We made it to the hut, which was a fantastic place:



We got set up, and kicked back. We had already done some serious travel for the past few days, and deserved a break.

Some light reading:


Picture perfect:


We hunted a bit around the hut, hoping to find some red deer. The area had been hit pretty hard, unfortunately it borders public land, and a lot of people come across. We decided to split up, Brent and I would go 5K up the valley and then hit some mountaintops, looking for chamois. Mark and Elliot would cross the valley and do the same.

More beech forest:


We covered the 8K and 900 vertical meters in 2.5 hours. The views weren’t bad:




Glassing:




Not a bad place to spend the night:


Sunset in the mountains:








High mountain tarns:


The morning dawned frosty:


And foggy:






The best places are hard to get to:


My ugly mug:


Surveying:


Two Chamois on the ridgeline:


It turned out to be a group of four chamois. They saw us, and actually came towards us. They are curious buggers. I set up for a shot, and at 80 yards let lead fly. I was sure I hit him, but Brent said I missed… It felt good, IT WAS AT 80 YARDS, I just couldn’t see how I missed. I was pretty pissed, as I am sure you can imagine. The gun hadn’t been sighted in recently, and took a beating over the past few days, but Brent insisted it was still sighted in. I was left to brood for a while, and the group of chamois went over a near cliff face into some vertical terrain. They ended up hooking up with another group, and we could do nothing but watch them. Chamois in the snow:


Late in the afternoon we made another unsuccessful attempt, the details of which are too painful for me to recount. I am now almost positive the scope has been knocked around too much and isn’t right. We make it back to the tent and it is too dark to sight it in. That night some bad weather moved in. Morning dawned and visibility was less than 100 yards. Time to leave the mountaintops. We headed back for the hut.

Luckily Elliot and Brent had better luck. (it lost one horn when it threw itself off a cliff as it was dying) They had a very tough recovery.





We got back to the hut and found the chamois hanging. Elliot and Mark weren’t really sure what to do, so they carried the whole thing down the mountain! I was ready for some fresh meat, so I went to work on it.


As the butchery process was going on, a group of offroaders came up the valley, they pulled over to take some pics, and we managed to snag a ride out. The weather looked bad, so we didn’t see much of a point in staying longer.

We had been going for 6 days and had covered 70kilometers/45 miles, most of it with heavy packs. We were beat, but planned to head down to Fox glacier to mess around there for a few days. Unfortunately the weather called for huge amounts of rain and streets to be washed out, so we scraped that plan and headed back for Dunedin.





So the trip didn’t work out exactly as we had hoped, but we got a little bloodied and had a blast shooting the shit and tramping around in some of the most beautiful country in the world.

Good post, and some more amazing pictures.

Very good - and Ohhh the nostalgia. I wish I had carried a camera around in the mid 70's when I was posted down South and able to hunt just about when and where I liked - fewer urban idiots who had blazed away at private landowners stock and a lot easier access to public land. Acess that is, the hills were just as steep. Glad you enjoyed it.

Sounds like an excellent trip for me! Nice pictures!

Ah nostalgia alright,especially the Lynrd Skynrd tee shirt.

Stunning