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Kaikoura Video and a short story
Here's the video, for those who like pictures not words...
https://youtu.be/lU59ER8IbV4
We left on a Friday morning and caught the first ferry to Picton, no dramas this time; last time we were off loaded whilst the police sorted out some family violence drama. We also have to confess to the Police that we had firearms in our ute.
We stocked up with food in Blenheim and loaded the packs up for one night on the hill. It was the hottest weather I've ever carried a heavy pack in and I lost a lot of water as we wound our way up to our first lookout and our intended camp site for the night. We set our 4x4 bivy up at one of our lookouts so that we only had to wake in the morning and roll out of bed. Quite a bit of glassing that afternoon and early evening but we only saw one deer, around 10 pigs and quite a few goats; it was however still quite hot. We retreated to our bivy and had a nice warm meal and hit the sleeping bags for a bit of shut eye.
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Up at around 0430 to readjust the fly, as some misty cloud was sneaking into it, I doubted if we would see much that morning. I stayed awake for most of the early morning and kept an eye out the 'window' waiting for it to be light enough to glass, eventually it cleared up and we got the eyes to work. We didn't see much that morning, just the pigs again and with rain forecasted we requested a pick up from my brother and his partner who had retreated to a BnB in South Bay.
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It rained and rain that night and I was glad we were off the hill and in a nice dry house with very comfortable beds.
We woke at 0430 the next day and headed back to the block, I went up the north side and Blair and his partner went up a ridge at the southern end off the block that looked like a nice walk. The sun was out and it took me just over 3/4 of an hour to get to where I thought some animals might be. When we left Wellington I told everyone I was only interested in shooting a stag, as it was the last morning I'd now convinced myself that I'd shoot anything, even a fawn if I saw it!
At the first place I sat down and glassed I saw three deer, a hind, yearling and a fawn making their way up the hill after they had winded me. As they hadn't seen me they stopped at 409 yards and scanned around for the intruders. I had heaps of time to set up the big camera and arrange myself against an old fence post. The younger of the two hinds stood proud looking around but front on.
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I placed the crosshairs on her chest, after dialing the CDS to 4(00) and then squeezed the trigger and the familar sound of a solid hit floated its way back down the hill to me. I reviewed the footage and it indeed looked like a solid hit so I packed up my kit and started to wander up the track to where I could dive off and find the deer.
Half an hour later I was standing by a very dead deer, that I dragged into the shade to cut it up for the trip back to the truck. Back on the track I contacted Blair and we arranged to meet back at the truck at 11.00am, enough time for me to dump the deer and almost climb to the top of the hill, but high enough to see Chamois.
I passed a lot of pig sign on the way up to where I shot my 9.75" chamois doe a few years ago with Hamish. I didn't have enough time for a good look around and never saw another animal, I did see enough sign and have a good enough walk that I decided that I'll book another trip and walk up that side next time I come back. There's some really neat places to camp and as long as you carry enough water you'd be happy up there for a couple of days.
This was probably my seventh or eight trip to this block and I always enjoy getting into some familiar and challenging country.
I know some of you have hunted this block before, if you need and recent intelligence, feel free to PM me.
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