Thread: Reminiscing in the Ruahines

Went for a weekend mission up on to the Mokai range via the new/old public access through Mokai station, its a real slog from the carpark up through the farm and then an even steeper climb up onto the mokai range itself but magic place when you get up there.
In my younger days after climbing up there a couple of times i vowed to never go that way again, but here we are 40 odd yrs later and its the 3rd time i've been up there since the access reopened LOL.
Made it up along to the start of the public land on the Bruce ridge where i camped the first night.
I glassed some nice country further along the mokai range but only seen one hind and fawn,


Sat arvo i walked back down the bruce ridge to Otukota hut, which got me thinking of a trip many years ago when our local Taihape heli pilot Brian Goodwin had returned from a short flight in the local cessna , i think to keep his fixed wing licence current , but he and his passengers had seen a few deer out on the mokai range. Now this was not a common thing back in the late 1980s with constant waro shooting , so a trip was planned for the upcoming labour weekend.
Brian dropped us off somewhere on the Bruce ridge (cant do that these days) where we hastily set up a fly camp and set off to look for all these deer that had been seen , but despite a perfect evening no deer were seen and during the night a southery front came in and the weather turned nasty, horizontal rain and bloody cold, i remember my flimsy old tent got ripped to shreds and my two mates were not much better.
I think we spent another night up there with all our gear sleeping bags etc wet through, Brian did fly in to try and pick us up but couldn't get to us , we could hear the helicopter down in the river but he couldn't get up to our campsite. Later when having a beer with Brian he was saying things like /gale force winds/ stall warning buzzers / and low rotor rpm/ .
Anyway with things starting to get serious we abandoned our camp and set off down the ridge to Otukota hut , and what a relief it was to out of the wind and rain at the hut . Brian figuring we would be at the hut picked us up when the weather eased.