New Zealand touristy stuff and Red Stag hunt

[npaden]

So yesterday was a big day with a Lord of the Rings tour planned for my son and the Shotover jet boat ride after that, then up the Gondola in Queenstown and some luge rides and finished it off with an amazing meal at the Toast & Oak.









I’m going to have to go find some more pictures and add them in here from the rest of the day.





We got the video of the jetboat ride too. I’ll work on getting it uploaded. Hopefully I won’t run into the copyright issues that I did with the bungy jumping.

We will see if this works. You will see a lot of my bald head if you watch it. lol.

 

[npaden]

Today was our rebooked flight to Milford Sound that was canceled again.

We are out of time in Queenstown so I guess we are going to miss Milford Sound this time.

Made a side trip over to Wanaka and everything was completely socked in but we took a picture with the tree at least. It actually looked pretty cool in the fog.



Pretty much fog and low clouds the entire drive over to Mt. Cook. Really starting to think we are snake bit on the weather but right as we get there the clouds start to lift.


We got checked into the hotel and my son and I did the Kea Point track first and then did what we could of the Hooker Valley track but the last 2 bridges are closed. Still some AMAZING views!












I’m not sure what the mountain in the last picture is (I think it is Mt Sefton) but since you are so much closer to it than Mt. Cook and since it is more of a wall than a true peak it seems more scenic than Mt. Cook to me.

We did get to see a little avalanche while we were there too. Here’s a video clip of it.

 

[Kiwi]

Great photos! Looks like you are making the most of your time here. Shame about the cancelled flights to Milford, its been bad weather over most of the country for the last couple of weeks. But looking good for the last part of your trip at least.

 

[npaden]

Lots more to go through and get some picked out but the highlight of the day was for sure landing in a ski plane on the Tasman glacier!

Need to get some music or something added at some point and edit in some of the helicopter ride back but thought this clip of us landing was worth sharing in the meantime.

Edited in some pictures from the morning before we did the glacier flight.





A couple pictures from the time on the glacier.


And one of lake Tekapo.

Beautiful places!

I still have several pictures from this day and some videos I need to come back and add.

Here’s one of the lake below Tasman glacier from the helicopter ride back down.

 

[WNC2500]

@npaden It seems that you guys did a ton of stuff and really enjoyed the time together. Your son must be a huge fan. Great time with family. Proud of you dad! Those are the memories that our kids remember forever.

 

[npaden]

We did arrive at Mesopotamia Station yesterday afternoon and the rental rifle (well really not rented because they aren’t charging us anything extra for it) is nicer than any rifle we own. A custom .280 AI topped with a VX6.

1 shot each at 300 yards and looks like we are good to go.


Eli hit dead center and I hit a little to the left on the 2nd shot. I want to say that I was aiming a little that way but either way it is a kill shot at 300 yards.

It’s a 12” target.

Met the guide and talked hunting for a couple hours and are now waiting to go out this morning.

Only negative is that they have had several of their biggest stags break an antler off below the pedicle. We are down to just a couple in the size range we are looking at. He’s trying to talk my son into shooting a bigger one antlered one that they found the broken off side for and could match it up for the taxidermy work.

About to go out now.

 

[CPAjeff]

What an adventure - thanks for sharing! There are some absolutely gorgeous places in this world!

 

[TheTone]

We did arrive at Mesopotamia Station yesterday afternoon and the rental rifle (well really not rented because they aren’t charging us anything extra for it) is nicer than any rifle we own. A custom .280 AI topped with a VX6.

1 shot each at 300 yards and looks like we are good to go.



Only negative is that they have had several of their biggest stags break an antler off below the pedicle. We are down to just a couple in the size range we are looking at. He’s trying to talk my son into shooting a bigger one antlered one that they found the broken off side for and could match it up for the taxidermy work.

About to go out now.

crazy, a coworker was on a hunt a couple years ago and had the exact same situation. Guide spotted the broken off antler and they later found the stag. Coworker was allowed to shoot it because the guide thought it would never grow a normal antler again. He got a significant size upgrade

 

[appaloosa]

Supposed to fly to Milford Sound and do the cruise this morning but they called it off due to inclement weather. We rescheduled to Tuesday morning but the forecast isn’t looking very good for Tuesday either so we might end up missing Milford Sound.

Drove up to Glenorchy and the weather actually turned out pretty good. Not sure why but evidently if you are in Glenorchy you are supposed to take a picture in front of the shed.
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Some really pretty spots along the lake.
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Really beautiful place. Every direction you look it is gorgeous and every corner you go around there is something new.

Did the Fergburger for lunch and then the bungy jumping was this afternoon.
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My son hasn’t sent me his pics or video yet so I might post those in another post. You might notice he ended up losing a shoe!

Here’s us doing the swing.
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And not sure if this will work but here’s the link to the videos that I uploaded to YouTube

It was a little scarier than I thought it would be. That is a LONG way up and even with the harness and being hooked up to the giant rubber band it takes some fortitude to launch off the postage stamp sized platform with all that open air underneath you.

I can literally see the mountain I stag hunted on in the background of one of these pictures!

 

[Carl 9.3x62]

Lots more to go through and get some picked out but the highlight of the day was for sure landing in a ski plane on the Tasman glacier!

Need to get some music or something added at some point and edit in some of the helicopter ride back but thought this clip of us landing was worth sharing in the meantime.

We took a helicopter up onto the Tasman glacier and then got to hike around a bit on it. What did you guys do on it?

 

[MTpubliclander]

The suspense is KILLING ME!!!!

 

[npaden]

Eating lunch at 3:30.

Teaser pic.

 

[npaden]

We took a helicopter up onto the Tasman glacier and then got to hike around a bit on it. What did you guys do on it?

We didn’t get to walk around much. Just about 10 or 15 minutes. It was a bit cold and my wife just had tennis shoes on and the fresh snow was 6” deep so we were ready to head back.

We flew back on a helicopter and that was a first for all of us, but I didn’t get as good of video as I did on the ski plane.

 

[npaden]

Back at the cottage early this evening. We saw my target red stag, but not really in a place that was going to be a good stalk and he was with about a dozen others so lots of eyes so we decided to wait until tomorrow morning to go after him.

Braden (our guide) will be back in a bit to go over our options for tomorrow. He’s pretty much talked me into a helicopter thar hunt but sorting through our timeline of getting that done.

He took a bunch of pictures of Eli’s stag and I’m going to wait until he shares them with us to post them. I’m sure his are better than the ones I took.

Spoiler alert, he did end up talking Eli into shooting the one antlered stag.

 

[Kiwi]

I think you'll enjoy the helicopter hunt if you do fit it in. Its beautiful country out the back of the ranch. I have tahr hunted the surrounding area three times (each time a separate side valley) and walked in from the road near your cottage.

 

[npaden]

Here’s the pictures of Eli’s stag.






Here’s the kill shot on video. Make sure to turn the audio on to hear the descriptive narrative when the stag ends up on the ground.

 

[Bowmannate2000]

Here’s the pictures of Eli’s stag.

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Here’s the kill shot on video. Make sure to turn the audio on to hear the descriptive narrative when the stag ends up on the ground.

Imagine trying to hang that beast in a dorm room

 

[Johnny Bravo]

Great looking critter ! How much of the meat do you get to bring back?

 

[SC Living Outdoors]

Awesome. Looks like a fun time. NZ is great.

 

[npaden]

Great looking critter ! How much of the meat do you get to bring back?

The tricky part is going to be getting it vacuum sealed and frozen. Our guide has volunteered to take some home and seal it up and get it frozen tomorrow night. Not really set up to do full on butchering and processing for these trophy stags. They seemed somewhat surprised that we wanted any of the meat. They do have commercial meat processors for their hinds and velvet stags and said they end up shipping 85% of the meat to Europe.

For now we are just planning on taking the backstraps and tenderloins home. They are going to use the rest.