Barry (BJ) and Bob had roped in Autry from the Porirua Branch to hunt with us in a remote area in the Urewera Ranges. We met up at the free camp ground at Lake Aniwhenua the night before we were due to chopper in by Lakeland Helicopters. I discovered Autry had been in the navy with a cousin of mine many years ago and I had been working with a distant relative of his in Hamilton. Good grief, I felt we were almost related.

We were now used to a few comforts when choppering in so we told Autry to bring a folding camp chair as we were going to have plenty of space with only the four of us which meant two men and a heap of gear on each shuttle flight. Autry was an experienced hunter of many years but was more familiar with backpacking in to Sika country and had not been part of a hunting trip into a remote area where you could take in these extra items, but he liked the idea.
Photo: Autry in his element gearing up for another cook up.

Flying over the small clearing far below we could see it was unoccupied again. Our luck was holding but we felt some disappointment with the previous hunting party when we found some discarded meat flung around the clearing itself, and had to dispose of some smelly chunks before we could erect our tents. I tied a pole against the last remaining post of an old biv that used to be on the clearing edge. We then launched two large tarps over the fireplace area and stretched one of them out over an old slab table and tied the far sides to the adjacent Rimu tree. If it should rain, we would have plenty of room to rattle around under these shelters. Unfolding our camp chairs we leisurely demonstrated to Autry how our evenings would appear over the next week relaxing around a warm fire with some refreshments in hand. The next job was to venture downstream to haul a load of firewood back to camp. We found the nearby amount of sign was looking promising.

Every year we enter the Woodhill Ballot, hoping to be one of the lucky hunters to draw a fallow hunting block. When I say "we", I am talking about John Elliot (Potlicker), Richard Ellice (Fatcat), & myself. Luck must have been well and truly on our side this year, as both John & Richard were successful with their applications. It is not very often that we have the luxury of choosing between ballot blocks / days.

As always, this hunting trip (June 27th - 29th, 2008) was anticipated with plenty of enthusiasm. We normally turn the trip into a three day weekend, ensuring we have a travel day on either side of the actual hunt day. These days we stay at the infamous Black Pete's hotel. The meals are excellent, with myself & Richard always going for 'the works'!

This trip we got our beer drinking around the wrong way, ending up having one or two beers too many, on the Friday evening before hunt day. John looked a little worse for wear the next morning. As expected from the weather forecast, Saturday 28th dawned wet & windy. I said to the boys that my ideal hunt day will be to knock over a fallow buck at 9am, be back to the vehicle by midday, and then sleep the remainder of the day in the back of John's vehicle.

I started out before dawn for a quiet walk up the track behind the hut. Only a hundred metres on, I heard stepping sounds below me in the bush. Carefully, I crept closer, through a shallow gully and onto a clearing where I could see across the dark valley to good grassy slips. It began to be light enough to see dim colours. I reversed back up onto the track, and a deer ran away above me – wrong guess! My ears had played tricks and I’d stalked away from the deer instead of towards it.

Later I was back at the hut and about to boil up a nice brew and porridge with Tony and Don, but Tony bustled back in from the doorway: “Deer !” My rifle was still leaning up out on the verandah so I had a head start. Three deer were looking down at us from the tall slip across the river. Tony brought out the hut benches and mattresses for rests and we lay down in the fresh snow on the hut clearing to line up for a shot. I hoped the 45 degree slope would offset the longish and unknown range and aimed at the brisket of a hind, oh so clearly visible through the 7X… An hour and a half later I had completed an extensive zig zag search of a hundred metre section of the cold and scrubby face where the deer had trotted off and there was no sign of hair, blood or deer – just a few deep hoof marks and a small pocket of shattered rock. I climbed out and made my way up the bush spur to rejoin a track high above the valley. Further up, clumps of snow among the ferns provided a refreshing feast and right on the highest point I took out Tony’s GPS and got a fix. Somehow, I had brought a map which ended just short of this point but I remembered the lie of the land quite clearly from the one I had back at the hut.

Eagle eyed Billy Telford stood in front of the Golden Hills Hut on our recent club chopper trip to the Kawekas and scanned for any sign of deer near the stream edges and up to the bush fringes beyond. He turned to Ashley and called him outside as he had spotted a sika on a grassy patch to the north about 500 metres or so away. Ashley moved onto the deck where he could watch the distant grey animal feeding. Ian grabbed a pair of binoculars and joined Billy and Ashley who pointed out the direction. The magnified view revealed another one, then a third hind slowly feeding their way across the distant hillside clearing. It was Billy's sighting so it was his chance to shoot one. He headed up the track towards the old derelict hut, then cut up and over the low ridge to where he should hopefully have a drop on the deer still feeding on the fresh grasses.

Ashley and Ian heard no shots from Billy's likely quarter as they hunted their own areas that day but the team had no luck. Returning to the hut on a warm sunny afternoon we rehydrated before cooking up our meals on the big double burner gas cooker provided by Helisika. A hut notice recommended that the gas should be turned off at the gas bottle at night. Wise advice as the hose connections can sometimes leak and the build up of gas in a small hut can explode with catastrophic results, which is probably what happened to the unfortunate individuals at Parahaki Hut recently when they were both killed in an apparent gas explosion which blew the little Urewera structure apart.

Branch hunt by helicopter to the Urewera National Park, October 2007

My heart sunk as we circled the hut I planned on staying at. On the landing area was one of the locals on a horse and other horses could be seen and the hut seemed well occupied. The pilot was not expecting this situation and told us there were other hunters at the huts on both sides so it was over the hill to where I did not want to be. I should have worked out a better alternative earlier. Any way we were soon down and Rob, Billy and myself had to make the best of it. We had plenty of provisions and clothing and we were well prepared, but the weather turned out fine the whole time.

There was a tramper that joined us at the hut soon after we had landed, Ali- who had been tramping around for 29 days and had not seen many others but he did see some deer in the valley where I intended to hunt.
The first afternoon we all went down to the stream where there was a walkable stream running past the hut. Rob and I went off up the ridge to the top. I was keen for Rob to shoot his first deer so I hunted behind him. We had done this for a few hunts but on the previous hunt I ended up shooting the deer. Maybe this time it will be Rob’s turn!!!!