Thread: New Years walkabout

"A River cuts through rock, not because of its power but because of its persistence"

Day Two - Fly camp to Tawa Hut to Side creek bliss

Woke early to the sounds of birds, The Eastern Whio link have an established network of traps in the area, although we didnt see any Whio on our travels there were plenty of tuis, kereru and other birds seen and heard throughout the trip. Evidence that the trapping program is working?

I headed up stream a little way on first light to glass a slip, but with our fire last night and scent meant no deer seen. Back to camp and made sure the fire was out, as I had the night before, we packed up and checked the topo maps out. We had made it about 3km up from the hut about a 3rd of the way. I conservatively estimated about 3 hours to Tawa hut.

The up river journey soon turned into a mission with a deep gorgy section well over waist deep, we decided to cut up and over, 30mins latter deep in supply jack and no game paths we dropped back down into the river about 100m up stream, hard yakka for little gain.

We started boulder hoping and stream crossing up river for the next 2 hours making about 1km an hour. The 6km to the next hut soon looked like it was going to be a long day..



I ended up having a few full emersion swims, rifle included, luckily not that deep that I needed to drop the pack (had straps undone) but on one dip both pack and I fully under water and I manged to get to knees using the rifle as a prop. Ziggy had a trip or two down a rapid but in most cases she was able to make it across with plenty of run out down the stream. After 3 hours we came across a dead 8 pointer in the creek, hard antler under what looks like velvet but well on its way to be returned to the earth. we stopped a few 100m up away from the smell and made lunch and dried out the rifle and rested up.

Had to carry Ziggy the dog over a few of the swifter deeper pools that had no run outs. I would cross, drop the pack and head back over to help Jade and carry Ziggy across. Not supper technical but enough flow to make it interesting, we only had to link up on one crossing.



An hour the wind had dropped to nothing, it was hot and I was just plodding along up river lost in the moment the dog not showing any real interest. Jade ever the keen eyed, quietly " There's a Stag Dad he's huge"

Jade had spotted a stag 50m up stream, it was bedded down in the shade on a cool section of the river behind a log, it was as aware of us as soon as we were of him and quickly got to his feet. I chambered a round and brought the scope up, the stag moving off up river and as I found him in the scope he went behind a rocky bend that obscured the chest shot i was after. I made my way into the river to try and get another chance as he crossed further up hoping for a clean shot as he went up the bank, not to be.

Awesome to see the stag and Jade loved every minute of it, big body and probably a 6 pointer in velvet but hard to say. In hind sight we maybe should have stopped, let him settle for a while and tried tracking him with the dog. My lack of fitness starting to come into play and not knowing how much longer we had in the river.

Not long after spooking the stag we came to the track leading to Tawa hut, this was a welcome relief as we both thought we still had an hour of river travel to go.



10 or so minutes of lounging on the deck of the hut another bow hunter turned up having walked in the other way. Asking where we had come from he just looked at me with with a glint of amusement and said" Well you came the hard way, down river travel is way easier and takes half the time....." We chatted for about an hour as he made a brew, he was a wealth of local knowledge and I enjoyed the chat. Rested up we headed off up a side creek to camp and he headed down river to hunt/camp.

We found a place to pitch the hammocks and fly's not far up the side creek and soon had dinner on the go.



Everyone was dog tried and the thought of going for an evening hunt or fish was soon put to bed, I think I was asleep before 8pm that night... I know the dog was..



No animals shot today but we both agree that even though the day was hard and long, the river section was by far our favorite part of the trip. The numerous crossings small waterfalls, warm weather, animal seen and that feeling of adventure of not knowing what was ahead made this part of the trip a highlight for us.

Day 3-4 to follow

Cheers FBD