THE HOLY GRAIL

Having successfully drawn a tahr ballot block for 2018, I thought the hard work was over

I soon learned this was not the case as DOC had decided they would be doing aerial 1080 work in my allocated block at the same time my party would be in there.

To their credit they came up with an alternative landing site so we would not have to deal with the green lolly scramble. To say we were excited about the new site would be an understatement – we were to hunt the same catchment that the NZ Hunter Adventures crew had referred to as the ‘holy grail’.

The long awaited day arrived and after picking up my brother Sam from the airport and doing a last minute check of gear and rifles back at home, we were West Coast bound. Typically, the forecast decided to deteriorate whilst we were in transit. When we reached our destination we caught up with our other party members and our pilot Gus Gordon of Glacier Country Helicopters Ltd. Unfortunately the weather was forecast to be awful for the first two days so