Goodbye New Zealand :-( Hello Indiana :-)

Well I made it back to the good old USA yesterday. It took a little longer than expected. My last flight was cancelled from Chicago to Cincinnati. So I had to spend the night in Chicago and fly home the next day. But I made it with all my luggage so that's good. A big Thank You to the lovely Henderson family in the top photo. For showing me the kiwi-way and doing so much for me during my time in New Zealand. And farewelling me at the airport in Christchurch. I'm sure going to miss you guys! The second photo is leaving NZ. The third is approaching Indiana. Two places very near and dear to my heart. Not to mention Montana. So for now just 10 days of quiet time catching up with friends and family. Then deer hunting season for a month or so. For now I'm going to continue the blog with a few happenings here on the farm and such for all my kiwi friends and family. So keep checking in. And thanks for following along!!

From the past 2 weeks

A few more pictures from the past two weeks. The top one is on the West Coast. Very big surf over there and just wild country. The pancake rocks that you see are another iconic New Zealand place. Photo 2 and 3 are of a French village called Akaroa. Out on the Banks Peninsula about an hour from Christchurch. Very quaint, quiet place. Photos 4 and 5 are from my hike up at Lake Heron. If you can click on the panorama and make it bigger you'll get a sense of how the mountains tower over you there. One of those places pictures just can't do justice to, but nonetheless. Enjoy!!

48 Hours

Sorry it's been awhile. These past two weeks have been a whirlwind so to speak. Sadly I've only got less than 48 hours as I type this left in NZ. I fly back to the good old USA on Saturday. Looking forward to that and seeing all my family and friends but I'm sure going to miss New Zealand.

I finished with work up at Lake Heron two weeks ago and since have been traveling the northern part of the South Island. Went right up to the very top and Abel Tasman National Park where I done a very nice 3 day hike along beautiful beaches and bush. And just got back from up at Lake Heron where i done a 3 day hike on the station and I stayed in some of the huts up there. The weather was amazing and I had a really great time. Never uttered a single word for over 48 hours. Nice! Was perfect to really reflect on my adventure here in NZ. And what I might do next!! I have a few ideas but nothing dead set in my mind. So you'll have to stay tuned. I will post more photos of here in NZ over the next week or so. So stay with me. It's really hard for me to fathom that I have been here for 10 months!! It seems like yesterday I was getting on the plane to fly off to the bottom of the world with absolutely no idea what I was doing!! And one only has to read back through this blog to get to see all the things I've been so lucky to get to do here in New Zealand. I never imagined so much!! So 48 hours be damned! Stay tuned. The journeys far from over:-)

New Zealand Hunting Trifecta Complete!!

Today I completed my NZ hunting trifecta. With the collection of a Chamois. Red Deer, Himalayan Tahr, and Chamois make up the 3 big game species to hunt here. For the past month or so I've been up on the mountain at every available opportunity trying to bag one. I've come close a few times but today succeeded. I took a different approach today than I've taken the past few times really getting high up on the mountain first trying to get above them. And it worked. They live up in the really high cliffy, really rough terrain. You can kinda tell in the first photo what it's like. I got snuck up on four and picked the buck out of the group. And with one lone shot I had my Chamois!! They're just such a beautiful animal. One thing I found really interesting is that their fur is really soft. Unlike a deer, it's much more silky. And the meat appears to be good eating. That we'll soon know. I've been asked how it compares hunting here compared to Montana Elk hunting as far as the terrain goes. Here it usually is a bit more straight up, and the vegetation is not very easy to walk through. On the plus side you're not worried about running onto a Grizzly!! The only thing that can kill you here is the weather and the terrain!! Another excellent day on the mountain for sure. Reflecting back I've been privileged to bag 2 Tahr, 2 Red Deer, 1 Wild Boar, and now 1 Chamois. Wow!! I never imagined I'd get to do so much.

Signs of Spring

Slowly but surely we are transitioning into Spring here. We've had quite a bit of rain off and on the past couple of weeks. The grass is really green which is good. We started calving last week so babies are on the ground. No lambs yet, two more weeks for them. The parrot is a Kia, and I seen him Sunday while I was out for a afternoon hunt. They're a really inquisitive bird and he kept coming up to check me out. I managed to get an arms length from touching him!! A really neat bird.

Stag in the Bag

What a week for hunting. I was pretty excited on Thursday after shooting the Hind. And this afternoon I managed to find the elusive stags. Located 2 nice ones in a small valley. Unfortunately they saw me before I seen them. But they weren't real spooked not having winded me. They just moved up over and out of the small valley I was in. I just watched in awe as they were the first stags I've seen in NZ other than the spikes I seen 3 weeks ago. Once they crested the ridge and were out of sight I hustled to the ridge top. By the time I made it to the top they had covered at least half a mile. They had stopped way up on the side of the mountain and were just scanning down below looking for that fearsome two-legged predator. I just laid low and let them calm down. After about an hour they figured the danger had disappeared and bedded down. Little did they know I was planning my stalk. It took me around an hour and a half to get up to them with a fair bit of belly crawling. But I managed to get within about 150 yards. I could just see the antlers of one sticking up through the brush. And it was the smaller one. After looking at those horns for about 15 minutes and knowing the bigger one was right there too I decided I had to do something. I couldn't just wait all day! So I gave my best impression of a dog bark which I've been perfecting moving mobs of sheep. After three good barks they both stood up for a look. And promptly went to sparring with each other!! I was so busy with my camera I almost forgot I was going to shoot one. After watching them for a couple more minutes I decided it was time. Leveled the crosshairs on the bigger of the two and just like that I collected my first New Zealand Red Stag! It's not a terribly huge one but definitely respectable. A mature one at least. Needless to say I'm on cloud 9!! I managed to get some decent photos with my good camera before I shot. But I'm not able to upload them to my blog unfortunately.

Shadow Hunter

It's been a real interesting week. The weather has been up and down a bunch. Last Wednesday we had a major wind storm with 60-80 mph gusts. It blew down lots of trees and power was out over most of Canterbury. We were without power here for a little over 24 hours. Then major thunderstorms followed. Over 3 inches of rain in 24 hours and some really wicked lightning. The shearers got finished on Wednesday right as the storm was at its peak. They finished the last 200 or so sheep on generator power running the shearing machines. 5000 shorn, 5000 yet to go. The next round won't start for about a month.

Yesterday I got to break away for a afternoon hunt. There are a couple of small valleys right above headquarters here that I've suspected held some deer. My hunch proved correct. I got onto 6 Red Deer "Hinds" (females). After watching them for a good 20 minutes come ever nearer I finally had to shoot one before they bumped into me hiding in the shadows. I shot a nice fat yearling at a whopping 15 yards away. Needless to say it was a one-shot kill! Should be really great eating. I haven't been able to find a stag, and they will be dropping their antlers about now anyhow.