Daley's Flat Hut

We looked at the weather forecast on Friday and decided it looked nice for a tramp, but still a bit cold for tenting, so we decided to walk from Chinaman's Bluff (at a place called Paradise, near Glenorchy) up the lower Dart to Daley's Flat Hut. The signposts said 3 1/2 to 5 1/2 hours each way, summer tramping time. It took us about 5 hours in each direction, but that included looking around each of the grassy flats for deer sign (and following the odd stream up to the tops) and also crossing the odd fallen tree.

The tramp was a pretty hard slog in places - it varied between beech forest bluffs and large grassy flats. The following photo shows where we stopped for lunch on the way in.

When we reached Sandy Bluff, there was a fantastic sign that said "Sheer drop offs for next 200m, then track decends steeply". This next photo was taken from the top of one of the sheer drop offs - looking out over Dredge Flat.

We did see a couple of deer - Greg got pretty close to a big stag - but the wind was behind us so he didn't have a hope of getting a clear shot at it without it bolting. And as the last thing you want to do is injure the deer, he let it bolt! We also went for a walk in the evening to see what was further up the valley and saw a deer up there - but it was on the other side of a large flat surrounded by scrub and again no clear shot.

We don't know how valuable a hunting area it will be - at the moment it's still really frosty in the mornings so nothing for the deer to feed on, but by the time the frosts are over it's peak tramping season and the track is really busy. A great experience none-the-less and with the blisters we had on the way out, we're almost glad we weren't carrying a deer!

A quick stroll

It was a long weekend for Otago Anniversary Day so we decided to head out and test our new camping equipment in the middle of nowhere. We had already pitched the tent etc at home to make sure it all worked, and happy that everything was in working order we headed off.

There are a number of open hunting areas in this area. We AREN'T going to tell you which one we were in, just in case someone is searching the internet for key words.... i.e. deer and where we live.

Anyway, after studying the maps we decided on a particular area. The access in was quite challenging, including an ascent and descent of an alpine pass. In total we climbed over 700 vertical metres on the first day and almost the same on the second day. To say we're tired would possibly be an understatement, but we had an absolute ball. Technically speaking it actually WAS a walk in the park (Mt Aspiring National Park).... but figuratively, not really!!

We saw a wide range of wildlife, including a rifleman, a number of robins, a mother hawk with her baby, kea... the list goes on. But that's not the wildlife you want to hear about now, Dave, is it??

We didn't have a gun with us as we are still in the process of getting our firearms licences - but we managed to "shoot" a deer or two anyway:

These deer walked out of the bush about 60m away from where we had set the tent up and were cooking dinner. They were walking around quite happily out in the open for almost an hour, even with cooking noise just across the river. When we woke up this morning two more came out of the bush, making a total of 6 deer spotted within shooting distance. 5 were Whitetail Deer and one was a Red Deer. Eat your heart out, Dave! You can probably understand why we'd rather not say exactly where we were!

So without giving too much away, here are a few photos taken on the way.

The river which we camped beside:

A stunning waterfall - thankfully we didn't have to get our feet too wet on the river crossings:

And last but not least, the picture below shows not only a great glacier but also how rugged the countryside was. We both feel a great sense of achievement considering we starting off just above lake level!