#2,
It was the end of my season, all clients had gone and i had a few weeks before thing of departing for home.
Traditionally, Henry and i would spend a bit of time at the end of each season, hunting for Beef, fishing, exploring new areas and just generally messing about.
Rolling in to camp one afternoon, Henry proclaimed the community needed beef desperately and we should do a trip down to Waikipa.
Now, i have to say that generally i would jump at an excuse to go down there as it was so remote, the fishing and mud-crabbing was superb as was the hunting. The major down side was that although it was "only" 80 odd kilometers away, those 80 k's generally took four to five hours of rough bush-track driving and the blind hope of not doing any major breaks or getting bogged down in the multiple water-way crossings.
To make the drive worthwhile Henry agreed to go for a few days as opposed to just going straight down and back again and this made the trip a little more practical for me.
We would go and stay until we had some beef.
Well, the trip down as stressful as ever. Rough, slow driving, multiple wash-outs etc etc.
Finally, after a number of hours of driving we arrived at the remote outpost and began to make ourselves at home.
Waikipa is a very remote Coastal outstation consisting of a small number of homes situated on the beach, one dune back from the foreshore.
None of the houses are permenantly occupied, in fact i never went down there when someone else was there.
On this particular trip Henry and i had set up our swags, built a fire pit and had had some dinner awaiting for the Sun to go down.
An hour or more atfer the Sun had gone down we heard the tell-tale sound of calling of a Red bull down on the beach. Just as the first bull sounded we heard two other bulls calling from quite close to us in the dark right in the middle of the outstation, on their way to the beach.
Waiting for the pair of bulls to crest the final dune we quietly loaded the vehicle, readied the .375 and hooked up the spotlight.
Henry was to operate the spotlight and i was to drive and do the "tapping".
Once we were ready i floored the gas and flew over the crest of the dune, the spotlight wildly dancing in the sky and everywhere else but where it was meant to be.
Henry had a lot of trouble correlating the fact that the light needed to be aimed at what you wanted to be looking at !@%$#@.
By the time he worked out how to shine it the light showed three enormous bulls, standing together about 100yds out, ready to take off, and alert.
Lining up on the biggest i managed to drop him on the spot, the second took two and in a matter of a few short moments we had a TON of beef sitting on the beach.
I was staggered at their size as both bulls were huge.
Henry sat by in relative comfort of the truck front seat as i spent the majority of the rest of the night dressing the bulls down in to manageable pieces.
It took quite an effort to get my truck off that beach that night as the rear end was sagging badly under the weight of the meat in the back.
We got a couple of hours sleep and then packed up and drove back to "town" early the next morning before daylight, in order for the meat to not spoil.
What a sight we made as we drove in to the community the next day with legs, heads etc poking up out of the back of the tray of my truck !!!
Good times, but hard work !
