As a career tramper and transalpinist, I used to run a trekking business and have been hiking around the New Zealand hills since I was 15. As I am now about to hit 60, that is quite a few years, so leaving behind the tramping ethos doesn’t come easily.
However my conversion to hunting, which began about four years ago (although I did hunt a little as a young fella) has now put me firmly in the hunting camp. Every so often though, I still have a yearning to just get out and walk the hills, the valleys and passes, camp at will, and carry on.
With this in mind, I chose what looked to be a nice little weekend tramp up one of the big Canterbury valleys that I…