Well it's great to know I am so highly thought of back there
It was a bit disapointing to have been in such a beautiful place which until recently was teaming with deer, until the DOC (Department of Conservation) now there a contradiction of terms if ever there was!! decide to arial bomb it with tons of 1080 poision suposedly for the possums, but it is widely accepted that DOC would kill every last non native animal if they had a chance and it kills everything.
It is quite eery when you stand there and not even a bird is twittering, in fact it was just so unsettling at one point I turned to Bob and said lets bugger off this is to weird for even me
We went on a forum hunt with Alistair a mate of Aunty's off the awesome fish n hunt site, it was on his 3000 acre family farm set in the rolling hills
of the Parapara's, rolling now there's a real good term my god Malc Heartbreak ridge is a mere molehill out here mate
The accomodation was in the shearers quarters covered in grafiti with the names of those who had worked there since the 1930's many Welsh and other UK folks had left their signatures, we met some cracking guys, and yes I was mentoring a total newbie so he is now full of my bad habits
however I did get him a nice fallow doe which was right down in a valley so quite generously as he was seeking the Kiwi hunt experience and we were British we left him an Al to carry it up the hillside
There was the odd flukey shot though one in particular made us grin, a group of us went to the range to check our rifles and a spiker as stood on the hillside watching all the banging and shouting quite unintimidated by the disturbance then obligingly walked down the otherside of the hill about 500 yards away for one of our group to stalk round, well stalk is maybe an exageration, maybe wander over
and shoot his first ever deer!!!
After that he wondered what all the fuss was about so we took him up the hills with us and showed him ...
We are of back down sowffff now hoping to get hold of Johndm on the way if we can't catch you mate I will be on my way up again nearer the weekend so hope to see you at some point on my way North for some Game Fishing and Pig hunting
... sorry no pics as we can't get the cards to upload to the pooter..