Up 4am Saturday morning and headed off to hanmer to meet a couple of mates and walk into Waiua hut hoping to stumble upon a red deer or maybe chamois .
Left the truck and was reasonable weather . Walked into the hut along the river flats keeping our ears and eyes open and glassed all faces and ground ahead .
Reached the hut to find already 5 people staying there so carried on to a bivy another 4 km on .
Canada geese everywhere which were taking flight and honking their beaks off every time we broke cover .
Reached the bivy to find a wooden shack half the size of your average small garden tool shed and set up camp under the trees.....then the heavens opened....
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So had a restless night in the tents while it pissed down and fairly high winds screaming down the valley .
And so it was all day Sunday as well . But we persevered and went walkies another couple or so kays up the track to check out the area and find any likely looking spots we thought the reds might be hiding in . Found a reasonable amount of sign in a few spots just up from camp and noted the locations . Glassed as much area as we could , faces and slips etc , but as was still raining visibility was poor . So after a days exploration head back to camp looking like drowned rats for another wet rainy windy night .
The rain finally stopped at 4am Monday morning so we decided to split up , I would hunt the flats and side creeks ( which at this point were rivers in their own right ), and the others would hit the tops.....
We were all back at camp around 4 with no animals sighted .... No roars heard or replied too....
Weather was looking dodgy again so we decided to head back to the first hut and packed up our gear and started the walk out hoping something would poke it's head out before dark . If we were hunting geese it would have seemed like xmas , but again nothing with four legs spotted....no roars heard or replied too....
Empty hut so off with all our cold wet clothes and spark up the fire for our one and only warm comfortable night .
Up next morning and pack up for a slow walk back to the truck . Blue skies above for the first time since leaving the truck Saturday .
So slowly hunt our way back along the flats but with wet grass and sun the mist slowly grew to the point that visibility was down to 100 mtrs or so for a large chunk of the walk.....
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Back to the truck wet tired and sore for the 1 1/2 hr drive back to hanmer followed by a 4 hr drive home.
And not a single 4 legged animal seen ( except hares and possums ).
