Thread: New Years walkabout

Originally Posted by Fat belly Dog

When I was here in NZ a few years back Nimrods posts on his multiday walks through the bush always brought me enjoyment to read. I have always wanted to explore areas I havent been to in the past. Realising a few weeks back that I wasnt going to be fit enough to take on the Ruahines this year I decided to do a local walk though the Waioeka Conservation area, my daughter and dog came along for the journey and we packed up and headed into the park for a 4 day explore.

"Difficult Routes often lead to rewarding experiences" This quote summed up our trip to a tee, although only one animal taken we had a great trip away

Day One Moanui to Koranga Forks to Fly camp
We arrived at the carpark early and shoulder heavy packs loaded with food and fishing gear and headed into Koranga Forks Hut, hoping to do the walk in 3 hours we arrived at just over 3.5, the hot sun though the overgrown grass lands slowed us down along with heavy packs. The dog was keen and wanted to take us up the bank on numerous occasions but we had plans elsewhere.

Swing Bridge over the Koranga was no challenge for Ziggy

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Reaching the Koranga Forks hut we stoped for lunch on a hot sunny afternoon, I pulled a mattress out on the porch and had a 40min power nap while my daughter and Ziggy played in the river.

Koranga Forks Hut

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Around 1pm we head off up river, evidence of all the floods this year was around and the Kahunui was running a little high a dirty. I planed to go up river thinking that each side creek the flow would reduce and the crossings would get easier, this proved to be not quite correct.

Big Logs washed down at the forks

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We made our way up river, slower than what I had hoped for but enjoying the experience and challenge. Along the way Ziggy was winding and indicating strongly with the wind coming down river, we slowed down and Ziggy started to ground track and smelling a vertical log, there was a lot of fresh prints in the river and it wasnt long befor my daughter spotted a pig 50 or so meters up river. Up came the rifle and the pig presented a 1/4 away shot as it went to go up the bank. I took the shoot as I was keen to put an animal on the ground for Ziggys first find.

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Well I dropped the pig, but Ziggy had retreated 50m back at the sound of the shoot and took some coaxing to move in on the pig, I was hoping that putting an animal or two on the ground might help her. She had come on heat earlier that day (a month early) and that may be playing into it. However taking our time I slowly got her to approach the pig several times and she was quite keen towards the end, but continues to show gun shyness traits, which I will go over in the dog section for help.

We carried on up the river looking for a place to camp, all of us getting tired after a hot day in the river bed, we found a nice bench and set up our hammocks for the evening.

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The idea was to go for an evening hunt up river but the wind was blowing hard in that direction which was the story for most of out trip, so we prepared a camp fire and got to cooking lamb chops on the coals. All that was missing was the red wine to go with them but my pack was heavy enough as it was.

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Dinner sorted, fishing was an option as we had carried in fishing gear but we relaxed and chatted around the fire and went to bed early

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Day two to follow, boulder hoping fun... or not

Cheers FBD

thank you for that - many years ago I was the DOC Field Officer for that area -your photos bought back some memory's - I have done that trip but in the opposite way to you - I flew my two young staff in and they painted Tawa hut which was in a sad way -must have been mid eighties - a silly fact the swing bridge at bottom of burn - very steep on Koranga side to come of it - the FS blokes who built it mis - measurerd it and they were short on cable - so the only thing they could do was build it with a real steep climb up onto it - silly fact but there ya go - would be a great area now for young hunters to have a good roar hunt but sadly a trophy unlikely but they would have deer numbers