Anyway! Once we'd finally got magazine HQ somewhat out of immediate danger, and since we were heading south for the Sako event anyway, I decided to head down a few days early and drag Jake my younger brother with me.
I'd had plenty of good chats with our local bow hunter/goat culler about the area. As we all know there can be some great heads in South Marlborough but a sustained history of WARO combined with some fairly arid country means they're few and far between. You have to cover a lot of miles just to find the deer, let alone a mature one, but Cody had given us a few pointers.
When the time came we had a great hoon in with South Pacific Helicopters and their hotrod Squirrel. We did a food drop at a hut on the way in and then carried on to a high ridge. Despite the fun I couldn't wait to step out of the machine and get the binoculars going. Of course we would have just sent every helicopter-shy stag ducking for cover, but that didn't stop me racing the glass across every hillside in sight. There was still a bit of low cloud and drizzle so we set up camp and waited for it to clear. As evening approached it did, making for a stunning evening above the clouds. We saw a couple of hinds and returned to camp hoping for a clear morning, filled with excitement of the beginning of hunting new country.
We headed
