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Photos - 5 Days in South Westland (correct photos)
I arrived home this week from my yearly pilgrimage to Westland. The goal of the trip was, firstly, not damage anything after last year’s calf wrecking effort! A chamois buck for Jason was on the list, as J was looking to add one to his tally of NZ game. We were also both hoping to cross tracks with a large bull tahr.
Cutting a long story short, the WX in the last week or so was pretty average. We managed to get out most days, but found the animal numbers a bit low compared to previous year. We expect DOC has been giving them a bit of a bomb up unfortunately. Ultimately, we pulled out a couple of days early and went fly fishing, but that’s another story!
Up the river Jason managed to bag a nice even 9.5 inch cham on the first day. We saw the buck and a doe with a kid within 5 minutes of reaching the main head basin which was a positive start to the trip. I spotted for J during the stalk while him did the business from less than 200m. No problem for his new .284.
We also took 5 tahr over the week, although no good bulls. Westland continued to impress scenery wise. Evidently December was super warm/dry, by Coast standards at least, and consequently the rata trees were flowering. I have previously been into this area half a dozen times in January and have never seen this phenomena before – picturesque to say the least. We checked out the glacial moraine lakes at the very top of the valley, which was a first for us. This little trek through the highest point of the head basin was going well until the final 45 minutes, which was pristine Westland scrub bashing. Amazing how 200 meters can take you that long - a real “so near but so far” type of experience. The scenery more than justified the effort however. The return trip, this time back down along the moraine wall versus up the river, was far more acceptable.
One of the cool things about the trip was getting to spend a bit more time using my Swarovski ATS spotter which was purchase for our Wild Natives Wapiti ballot. Sadly, Swarovski had not released their Iphone7 accessory in April. It arrived in June and is a great bit of gear. We had quite a bit of fun with the spotter. We were able to observe and video a group of chamois playing around downriver on the other side of the catchment at 2.3km. The 4 chams were located in some snowgrass at about 1600 m. They were perfectly safe due to some nasty looking, inaccessible bluffs below them. In observing the animals, it was good to see that chamois still have trouble on snowgrass despite having “4WD”. The footage on one animal rolling end over end down a snowgrass face is pretty amazing. Reminds we of some of the fun and games we expeinced on the Wild Natives River tops. Rather them than me I guess…..!
Overall it was a week of great scenery, company, food, calf burning workouts and fine single malt. Always sad to leave the majesty (and whitebait) of Westland for another year.
Hope you enjoy the photos and videos.
Cheers
HandR
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Excited about finally getting in – albeit half a day late, before the weather completely closed in for another 24 hours
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The taxi leaving us in paradise
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Amazing rata bloom – reminiscent of a wall of pohutukawa – made a Jaffa feel at home on the Coast
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Jason – happy with his buck on the first day
https://youtu.be/UmBGdxbgKNA
A young tahr, photographed from 400m. Quite cool to see him move when Jason whistles
https://youtu.be/O15X4kvxvb0
The group of chams
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Various views of the moraine lake and valley – pretty impressive
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Lunch in Hoki - mmmmmm
