Thread: accommodation with range

Originally Posted by LookingForMauser

Sometimes I really want to run away from Auckland, internet and my lovely dog. Just go to a lodge/cabin in the middle of the bush with a couple of mates for a weekend. Do bbq, maybe some fishing or kayaking if river nearby, little plinking competition at the back of the property, or maybe even clay shooting/shotgun fun. Am I asking for too much? And if this paradise exists somewhere let's say 4h drive from Auckland how I can find it?

Cheers for all the hints

This is the sort of thing that all of us city-dwelling folk want really.

We go to a place kinda like what you are referring to for family/friends boys trips 3-4 times a year, with a nice lodge to stay in, but the range consists of 16,000 acres of manuka clad hills with quad tracks everywhere, the shooting mounds are anywhere you want them to be, and the targets are not static with a variable mix of red and fallow deer as well as pigs, plus a few goats.

Its about 9-10 hours south of Auckland thou I'm sorry.

But there is surely a huge demand for exactly what you are looking for, a few years ago, me and my dad and another mate went for a long weekend to a property up the Whanganui River. It was being marketed for hunting trips by Damian Hall (Damz) on this forum. He completely oversold the place, the hunting wasn't great, very minimal good hunting area, and piss all animals, and the accommodation, well let's just say that was somewhat lacking.

But.....we actually had a bloody good weekend. From the deck of the hut we could shoot at 3 or 4 steel gongs that were already setup on the adjacent hills, out to about 650 yards from memory. So we all had a pretty relaxed cruisy weekend, we did some gong shooting during the middle of the day from the hut, which was awesome to get my old Dad shooting much much further than he ever had before.

Early morning and late arvo we took the quad out the back to hunt the two open huntable gullies, we did actually manage to shoot 3 small fallow, the only 3 we saw for the whole weekend, and we shot a few goats too.

We cooked up some good meals including some deer heart, onions and mushrooms, but could have just the same taken the weber kettle and got a bit more carried away if we chose. Then after dinner went spotlighting possums etc for a big of fun with the rimfire.

So even thou the hunting was pretty average at best, we actually all had a pretty cool time, just doing the sort of stuff you are looking to do.

Note: I think we were the first group to have our trip to this particular property, I think Damz sold these trips to several others on the forum too, and their experience was less positive than ours. As mentioned he definitely over-sold the place.

I'm sure someone will come up with a suitable place for you to do the type of things you are looking to do.

While i like my more proper hunting trips, there's certainly a place for this kind of relaxed type trip away doing boys stuff. Here's a little vid with some of the action from that trip with my Dad to wet ya whistle.