Phone rings Jeff says "mate are you nearly ready to go" I say " yeah mate just sorting out my kit, and I'll be out shortly".
Jeff says "ok, good mate, hey by the way Doug has had a rough start to the morning" I say " oh ok what's happened?"
Jeff says "his brother rang, their sister has gone into hospital with a brain bleed (she's 80 odd), so he's a bit iffy about coming down"
I say "oh shit, I hope she's gonna make it, how's Doug?
Jeff says "he's good, he's coming now, she's passed away, he said he's just going to bring an extra bottle of rum"
Slightly speechless I say "arrrrr ok mate see you shortly".
What a way to start a trip for my birthday!!!!.Life has to go on I guess.
Were heading down to south of the Wairarapa right on the coast for some hunting on a 10000acre Station that's gone to scrub and filled with native bush
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There are 6 of us and the station is huge so quads are a must to get to were you want to hunt I was watching and prying for good weather as id been orginising this trip for months the weather turned it on for us.
The scenery was really pretty so I took a few photos when I could,the hunting was great I seen 18 animals in total including some nice Fallow! it was good just to watch and take pics and relax!.On the fri night we watched some Fallow and then observed a silly spiker feed up towards us we were there for meat so wernt worried about getting something straight away.Light faded so we headed back to see how the boys got on,they two found some animals to stare at.
Saturday started with a hearty feed and plans sorted well before first light.We headed of and got into our spots for our morning hunt and witnessed a really nice sunrise and then as light wonderd over the valley the animals came out in small number's but this very relaxed little hind popped out from under us so we watched her for a half hr taking pics and hoping for her mates to show up....they didn't so we went of somewere else to explore leaving her to her own devices.
lunch time turned up and we wanted to go over to another side of the station for the arvo hunt so we had to go past the cabin so we might aswell have a hot feed that done it was about 1430hrs when we got to our arvo spot we hoped of the quad and walked along a ridge for ten minutes and I spotted white rump in amongst the manuka and called my mate over and they seen him and spoked ,I counted as 5 hinds trotted of down the scrub.I followd them up I was rugged up so by the time I had sussed there little clearing out and came back to the bike I was roasting in the arvo sun so stripped the jacket off and pants and then headed down the ridge to catch up with my mate.Just as I caught up with him I looked over to my left to see a scrubby 8 feeding on a clearing 300yds away his back to us we hit the deck and got into a shooting position. He said your shot birthday boy!.I lay down dialled in 4 clicks on the Loupy then realised I had one round in the chamber and the other 3 the pocket of my jacket along with the camera, I was having feeding problems with my bolt picking the round up and totally forgot about having one round in................pressure as he was a big animal and I didn't have a follow up shot available and I didn't want my mate to clean up my mess if it went south.He had a nice main and he started to slowly turn broadside I took the safe option and went for the vital shot instead of his neck!.............crack.........his legs folded up under him and he hit the deck "like he was struck by thor's hammer" my mate was highly impressed while we were stating how marvolous we were at finding him when a large spiker ran towards the danger zone.........."your shot bro"......boom went his 300 t3 and the spiker was done bruger's.The animals were shot on a satellite clearing so it was 500yards straight down and 500yds straight up we didn't have to much time to Piss around so we lightned up our kit and boosted over there to turn them into packs in get them back to a track to pick up with the bike he was a heavy bugger but I lugged him down and up outta there!!! stoked my mates animal had to legs fucked from a bad fall so he chopped him up making him easier to cart up the muddy hill............we got there and up to the bike with some daylight left.
we got back to find our mates had scored a nice porker in the thick manuka and our other mates had secured a nice yearling.The birthday beers flowed and the bullshit rolled that night.The next day I left the rifle at home and played passenger to take some more pics and enjoy my last day, all in all I had a great time away with good company and great country getting home I missed my kids heaps and we played lounge rugby for ages.And as for my mate Doug he said thanks for the great trip and he said it was the best medicine for him.
Hope you enjoy the yarn.
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