Originally Posted by
Barry the hunter
watch and finding north - crude but does work - very rough- point 12 at the sun north is half way between 12 and hour hand - digital watch yes does work - you just need to know the time and imagine a normal watch face on it - but none of that beats time spent with a map aligned to north and work out which way the ridges rivers and streams lie- stick to that catchment for awhile until the lay of the land becomes a lot more clear and half way to not getting lost - Stewart Island and Pureora probably the two hardest hunting areas in terms of ease of becoming very confused - the biggest problem we had at Waikaremoana finding lost hunters was they persisted in keeping going - so were often miles from where their mates reckoned they would be - one guy walked 25 km and came out 3 days later on a sheep station to the south - said he was not going to be a burden to SAR - to bloody late 50 search and rescue and quite a few helicopter hours spent- but we were proud of the fact we always got our lost one even in one case a week later