i ended up having 3 months over in nz. met some wonderful people and lived on a sheep farm, talk about emersed in the culture.
i spent most of the time working on the farm as it was lambing.
i got to meet up with tentman, we organised a week end trip to chase some goats in the hills.
two days before we were due to meet up, my old faithful boots decided to fall to bits, so i had to loan some off the fella i was working with. big mistake.
the 1st day we drove thru some very steep canyons it was a wonderful senic drive, thou the timid may not have liked the drop off over the side of the road, some spots were hundereds of mtrs to the bottom. this is not something someone from darwin is used to, our idea of a mountain is a big ant hill.
i was useing the remington .308 with factory 150g cor loct ammo. tm was using his new 243.
we park the car survey the surrounds and set off, up a very steep hill on the look out for some goats, befor long we find two small goats sitting up in a gully 3 or 400 mtrs above us we sat and watched them for a while, caught my breath! and set off after them. we came around and over them still sitting in the same spot. tm alowed me to have the 1st shot. so i lined up the brown one who was standing faceing towards me on a slight angle, i put the remington 150g cor loct into the brisket and he flopped. tm had the 2nd one on target and bang.... miss bang...... miss again so i give him some lead and bang.... flop it started to slide down the gully as it was so steep. appon closer inpection i had hit this one in the head. tm looking a little puzzled called "great shot!" and we took a couple of photos.


this was the projectile from the first shot, it hit the shoulder took out 5 or 6 ribs and liquified the internals, it was under the skin infront of the hip

next we set off arround the hill we were now on the side of and soon tm saw some movement we scouted around and found 2 little babys, very cute so i shot them, with the camera.

we went furthur around and soon came accross 4 more goats on the move, tm had 1st shot of this mob bang..... miss so i didnt wait for the billy in the lead, side on about to jump over the edge and into the next gully, bang..... gone.... over the edge, we tracked it down and found it with a hole thru right to left.
it was starting to get cold so we head down and back to the car. to say that i was stuffed was an understatment! i had the biggest blisters on my heals i had ever experenced and my old ross river suffering body needed some speights. althow the boots held up well.
it was about now i was wondering if i had gone hunting with a tree hugger 4 shots all misses. and he was letting me know that he was worried about his rep.
it took a bit of encouragement to get me up the next morning, but i reluctlantly agreed to another trip to a new spot, it was about a 2000ft climb to start and it looked a loooooong way from the bottom.
we had not even got to the top befor bumping into an unlucky billy tm who was ahead of me promptly whacked that one, so the 243 works, and we resumed the climb, every time i looked up tm was 200mtrs up ahead looking down at me and smiling, i think he was enjoying watching me strugle.
we finaly get to the top and take a short break

then we head around the edge of the hill, hello a large mob including a few good size billys.
we double back over the top of them and i eyed off one with a nice looking coat, we waited until they were in the open, the shot must have been on a 70 degree angle down, again unusual for a darwinite, bang..... flop

then all hell broke loose, they all headed under us to the left, we swing round and come accross to see them running up the next ridge, tm whacks one on the fly at about 200 mtrs, nice shot, and i got another nice billy on the run at about the same distance, it was exelent shooting.
now was time to head home and going down felt nearly as hard as comming up.
my blisters had worn down to the bone and legs were like jelly but i made it what a trip! and what a host tentman was putting me into the action, i was also impressed with him being so polite as to miss the first 4 shots
next trip was just befor heading home, i had still not got onto a deer and was wondering if i would.
kev and i met up with his mate who had some fellow deer on his property, it backs onto some forrest so the keep jumping the fence, lucky us.
we drove around and checked out a bunch of spots without sucess, untill we checked over a ridge and down in a gully was a fallow hind, we needed to get a feed so this one came home with us.

it was a exelent time the kids became farm kids the weather was a very nice change to the build up i was spewing that i had to come home.
a very big THANKYOU to tentman for your hospitality, and to all you lucky kiwis, enjoy you lucky buggers.
greg

Greg - nice story, full of what we Kiwis expect from our Aussie "cousins" - Sh!@#T

Just to set the record straight although Greg is a heck of a nice guy, with a wonderful family, he has that great Australian weakness of not letting the facts get in the way of a good story - he is a bloody good shot - I will admit that. I am not a tree hugger, and although I did miss 4 shots in a row with a new rifle (how I do not know, it was shooting groups of around 1.5" at 150 yards) it was not out of any misplaced sense of sportsmanship or letting him off lightly. Once that had occured ofcourse I couldn't let him get away scott free and felt compelled to "walk him good" so that he wouldn't give me any trouble. As you can see from the photos its quite grand country, and even a small walk (yes Greg, those were small walks by usual NZ standards, if we were looking for Chamois we'd have been climbing for several hous not just one or two) is a great day out. Usually the goats are are easy to pick up, its a bit of a shame that they are not "trophy quality" through those areas. Still I think the photos themselves are a pretty special thing, and some would say a fitting trophy for a good day out.

Greg and I discussed boots when planning the trip, and he mentioned that he was going to wear his elastic sided "stockmans boots" (much beloved of outback Aussies, most of em wear "RM Williams"), which I thought would be OK cause he looked fit and certainly he is a hard man (what he doesn't say is that he played professional rugby league, and they don't come much tougher than that !!). However stockmans boots are not really that suiatable for the mountains so I was a bit relieved when a pair of well broken in and solid lace up boots appeared from his car. He didn't mention that they weren't his, or that they might give him problems, so I didn't know about the blisters. Ofcourse if I had known would I have gone any easier on him - NOT BLOODY LIKEY, never give an Aussie an inch, or he'll walk all over you.

As I've mentioned its a grand part of NZ, and I love sharing it with other folk. Just be aware that we do have some hunting traditions in NZ, one of them being to deal with anyone who is full of themselves by "walking the man down". Lots of visitors think NZ guides are rudely fit, I can assure you they are. Now as I mentioned if clients are inclined to give out any shit they 'll just find that its suddenly necessary to climb that far ridge, then the next, and then another after that. 10 hours later (less if the client is a bit elderly) when the client drags his sorry and very weary "ass" back to camp behind a quietly grinning guide he'll know what it is like to have been through a "walk the man down" effort. It's an very effective cure for talking too much, insomnia and probably a whole host of other ailments of the mind !!

Cheers - Foster

quote:

Just be aware that we do have some hunting traditions in NZ, one of them being to deal with anyone who is full of themselves by "walking the man down".

thats a chalenge i am willing to try to impose appon you when your over here, cant send you up and down a f%*ing great mountain , but it gets a little warm around here, and that can take some conditioning.

and just to cover the rm williams, those old faithful boot went on countless trips hunting and on 4 unsucessful deer trips thru what could only be described as conditions close to the kokoda track, and i never had a problem with them. it was that bloody sheep shit, stuff must be acidic and eat the boots away
greg

I've tried walking a few kiwis 'down' in Australia (in the NT too) and it doesn't work. Tough, fit buggers that's for sure.

Great post Greg. Always good to see hunting tales retold here , and Foster's angle on it was great too.

The hills are real hills and the average hunter is fairly fit down here - but guides are super fit cos they do it every day .

Thanks for posting