“ As the date came closer , the weather forecast became worse .”
Georgi looking happy despite the conditions . Note the yellow dry bag for camera , matches , map , etc . a few hours got to the carpark . The higher we climbed and the further we got , the more we started to notice old snow that crunched under our feet . Another few hours and we made it to the hut , just as the weather started to spit . This was the start of a storm that would last for the next 40 hours . With wishful thinking we went for an evening stalk and got absolutely drenched . All we saw was more of those old round prints in the snow .
It was good to spend the night in a nice warm hut where we could get ourselves dry . Next day it was still snowing and raining so we occupied ourselves with cards , reading the hut magazines and gambling the squares of chocolate in our scroggin , but soon got bored from being hut-bound . Thankfully that evening there was a break in the weather so we made the most of it and went out to stretch our
legs . Snow was melting , as it often does immediately after a big fall , and we returned empty-handed , wet and drenched again from the dripping trees .
Next morning we awoke to snow everywhere and a bluebird day . During all the nasty weather we thought surely the animals would have been tucked away in the bush , so we decided to wander around until we saw some fresh prints in the snow , then follow them .
Before long we found some very fresh , well-defined deer prints so we slowed right down and started tracking the animal . It was hard to go quietly through the snow as the top layer was slightly frozen and would crunch underfoot . Then we came to a spot where suddenly the prints were further apart . It looked like the animal had suddenly started running instead of walking . We reckoned that
Georgi and me with the 7 pointer in the winter wonderland
14 NZ Hunting & Wildlife 196 - Autumn 2017