The purpose of the hunt was primarily a goat cull, but with the chance of also seeing some deer too.
After several weeks of preparation, and sighting in the rifle and improving my technique so that I could hit what I aimed at, I was ready on Friday evening finally. With the truck loaded, and the bike on the trailer, I was ready and poised for the early start on Saturday morning.
At 3am on Saturday morning, the alarm went off and we were all go. After a quick breakfast and a quick drink, we were off (I was taking another forum member up too). 4 hours later we met the other guys in Ratehi. After quick introductions, we were back on the road for another hour to the start of the track to the "Bridge to nowhere".
Once at the bottom of the track, the quads were unloaded, and the trailers rehitched to the bikes and loaded back up, and we headed off up the track.
Around 1 hour later (about 9.2kms) we finally got to the clearings where we were to camp.
We all set up camp, and had a bite to eat, then made plans for the afternoon. From the maps given to us, carrying on down the track seemed like a good idea. With two others on the back of the bike, we headed down the track, and after about another hour of bouncing around on the quad, we finally reached a clearing that looked like it the track might start deteriorating quite quickly. At this point a lie down sounded like a good idea. Whilst we were sitting around, we heard a few bleats up in the bush above up, so myself and another headed up to try and locate the goat. We did a few bleats to try and call the goat in, but to no avail, and we headed back to the bike. After that I decided I would carrying on walking down the track, whereas the other two would head up the gully where we were.
Whilst walking I didn't find anything, but I bumped into 2 other members (7mmWSM and Yammies) of the group, and since they were heading in the same direction, I tagged along. After awhile we bumped into another forum member (igrnz) and we stood around talking for awhile, and then we say a goat on the other side of the ravine.
Igrnz had an attempt at the billy but missed, and then 7mmwsm and I headed further down the track, and it wasn't long until we met a couple of goats on the track. I quickly brought my rifle up, and fired at the billy, and he headed off quick smart, leaving my thinking "How the hell did I miss that!", and 7mmWSM came forward and shot at a young billy. Whilst I was taking the a hind quarter off the young billy for a spot of curry, 7mmWSM headed further down the track and located my billy, who had a reasonable ugly gut shot (my bad!), he quickly administered a killing shot. Learnt and important lession here, if you think there was a chance you hit it, and it gets away, check! But since the billy had horns, I removed the head and took it back with us.
That was it for goats on Saturday so we started heading back to where we left the bikes. The trip back up the track this time was a bit better, I only had igrnz on the back. Once or twice there were a few hairy moments, due to my driving skills, we quite often had the front wheels off the ground, and at one stage I even managed to throw igrnz from the bike into the bank. Apparently very funny to watch from behind!
On the track up, Pennyless and Dave (son) had left 2 back legs on the track, hopefully the quad we saw at the bottom hadn't drove over it!. We picked them up and stashed them on the front of the quad, and at one point on the track, one of the legs jumped off, and I drove over it! Oh well, tenderized meat!.
Upon getting back to camp, I proceeded to make dinner, yep, goat curry, and it tasted bloody terrific, meat was a little chewy, but very tasty!.
After a reasonable (but freezing) night's sleep, the next morning at a reasonable hour, Pennyless's son and I headed off down towards (and past) the private block of land. On the way down, we did encounter one whiff of Billy, but we only got a glimpse as they ran deeper into the bush. After driving through some really nice large clearings, and then realizing that that penned up sheep and the house probably meant we shouldn't be shooting around here, we consulted the map and chose somewhere else to hunt; there was a large stream a few ks up the track with what looked like clearings on the topo map. On the tramp up, we encountered a Nanny and it's kid, Dave took the Nanny and I shot the kid (bringing my tally to 2). Then we headed off the track and up into the bush to sidle above the stream overlooking the clearings on the other side. 10 or so minutes in, we came to a good size clearing on the other side so we crossed and had a quick explorer. We basically stumbled across two goats, and a few shots later, Dave had another as did I, the head was close to the one the day before, and had real thick horns, so I removed it and left it down by the stream for collection on the way back. The rest of the tramp to the fork was reasonably uneventful, except for a very deep gorge that needed crossing by the means of a tree the goats had been using, and then a very small ledge on a high drop which was hand's and knees material, all good fun!
We never did get to the fork in the stream, the last creek was too deep to cross, and as it turned out, the Google earth imagery doesn't show a clearing anyway!
On the way back, with the temperature rising, we my water getting low, we had a break to listen for goats (or just simply have a rest!) I headed down the bank to the stream, and made the last 6 foot a bit quicker than anticipated (ie, the bank gave way on me!), but when I got back up, both Dave and I heard a got bleat from the clearing on the other side. I had the rifle ready in an instant, and Dave started bleating to keep it occupied whilst I found a better place to shoot from. At this stage we still couldn't see the damn thing, so I tried bleating. Having goats at home, the bleat that really seems to get other goats attention was the bleat of the kids, high pitched, panicky and very loud, so I tried that. Lo and behold the billy responded with a bleat, and it didn't take long for the "kid" to entice the billy out of the cover. From the bush, I saw this black shape under the tree, and a quick look through the scope confirmed the goat. Cool I thought, a slightly more calculated shot, I lent up against a punga, and almost headed down the bank again as it was not quite stable, and a slight change in pose and I was ready for the shot. Click went the trigger.....Shit, I forgot to load! Quickly chambering a round and taking sight again, BOOOM, then all you heard was "F*?k, I hit it!" The goat dropped like the proverbial sack of spuds!.
We quickly crossed the stream and on inspection it wasn't surprising it dropped, I got it straight through the skull, exiting just beside the ear. Thankfully the horns were still intact as they were better than either of the other two heads I had.
After a few photos, I removed the top half of the head, and we started heading back, picking up the other head on the way (it made it much easier to carry the messy head as I taped the two heads together to contain the bits from the one missing the bottom half!).
The other highlight of the walk on Sunday was two bush robins that showed great interest in us, and stayed flitting around us whilst we got lots of photos..
As we were on the track back up to camp, we drove around a corner, and stumbled upon 2 kids, a few minutes later, and another Booom echo'ed around I had my 5 and final kill. Unfortunately this was a very messy shot, I caught the kid in the back end, smashed both legs, and gutted it at the same time, and to make matters worse, the poor blighter was still alive. I shot again, and missed, so I quickly scrambled across and administered last rites with a knife.
Monday morning was significantly warmer, and around 6:390 I headed back towards the private land, trying to get to a clearing further up the valley which we had gone right past the day before. I found a hunter's track that led straight down to it, and upon getting there I found some fresh sign, and tracks in the grass leading into the bush. After some time watching and listening, I started heading back up the track, and once more during the frequent pausing for breath I head a mew. Not knowing what it was, I mewed back, and for about 30 minutes there was a constant dialogue between me and the mewer. God knows what I was saying, but I kept it's interest up at least. I never did find what it was, and at one point I thought I might have even gone past it. Upon getting back to camp, I described the noise and informed that it might have been a hind or fawn. It was fun all the same talking to the animals, and I wouldn't have shot a fawn or hind anyway.
After getting to camp, we headed back to the car, and the trip home.
All in all it was a fantastic trip.
Second goat
Second head worth taking
The head that won the junior head
A little bush robin that graced us with it's presence
Close up of my winning head
