Day II

Imagine this - waking up in paradise next to a pristine stream, under a fly camp and right by your parked chopper. Very surrealistic. A quick breakfast of porridge and stuff and Pete warms up the taxi, then takes off with TT to find our fishing water for the day. As it happens we're pretty much gorged in at camp, with a canyon upstream and deep water and cliffs downstream. Mark and I wait until Pete reappears and then we're off, flying upstream to wide spot in the riverbed. We land and set up, this time taking the rifle.
The fish are sharper here, less apologetic or forgiving, almost as if they have received pressure - and who knows? They may have. TT gets on the board but I muff my only decent shot by hooking the bottom right in his face...

Mark gets a nice piece of water to prospect, so I grab the rifle and move up to inspect a small gulley. Poking my head around the corner and holy hell there's a deer looking at me. I freeze and tell TT to keep still, throw up the rifle, centre the cross hairs on her neck - CLICK! Empty chamber! Cranking a round in I marvel that she hasn't moved and again take aim and drop her cleanly with a neck shot that takes out her spine. And that's my first 'do it yourself' bush deer in the bag. Mark's got some kevlar twine so we hang her and I take out her guts, remove her head and prop her open with a stick to cool off. We fish on upriver but after an hour have reached the next impassable gorge so we turn and head back down. At the deer spot, I decide that a carry would be unecessary and biff her in the creek on a string - and walk her down! The lazy man's carry!
Soon we're back at the chopper and we discuss fishing options. I'm conscious that the carcass is heavy so tell the lads that I'll butcher her while they head out to the next spot in the chopper. Pete tells me he'll be an hour tops, so I get to work skinning her and have the deer processed in roughly 45 minutes. Back steaks, eye fillets, legs and rump. All bagged. Now's where it went a bit scary... after 2.5 hours there's no sign of the chopper. Away to the south its getting a bit darker. I have my day bag, fire lighting stuff, knife, light, a deer of course - but my jacket's in the chopper and if they've gone down and hit the EPIRB its still an overnighter by the time we're found. So I set to work building a biv. I need wind and waterproofness more than anything so build sturdy walls with logs, lay over a roof of ponga fronds and the deer skin, put down a comfy bed of dry grass, make a fireplace, gather wood and generally make the shelter as comfy as I can. I have on my merino mid weight top and longjohns and a pair of shorts... but christ it's gonna be a chilly and wet night if I spend it out here.


Deciding to try and get everything dry before a night out, I prepared my fire and took off my boots and socks. Just as I was striking the first light, the chopper came over the ridge and Pete brought her in. We had a quick chat and Pete explained that his fuel load was lower than he liked so he's not come back until now, and that with weather approaching we were pulling out. All good as our plan b flight path was dodgy to say the least. Packing the meat into the chopper we took off and met the lads on the Motu. A quick hop back to Opotiki and I put the call through to the olds to meet me at Thames in an hour. A terrific flight back and I was on the road, reflecting that just over an hour ago I was preparing for a night out - and now here I was in my car.

All in all a great trip, thanks to generosity of others.