Last night I learned something interesting… they have Rocky Mountain Elk running wild in New Zealand. These Elk were a gift from Teddy Roosevelt in the early 1900s. That guy sure was the king of big game hunting.

I got dressed in my warm gears which included an 800 down jacket under my silent weave camo top. I guess if I steam up I can always take some gear off. Some snow has fallen on the mountains and I didn’t come all the way down to New Zealand to freeze.

But I suspect it’s nowhere near as cold here as we’re used to up home. The guide said that the wind cuts through you and we’ll be driving around a bit in the truck with the windows open.

My dew point pants are starting to look like they’ve seen better days. I guess they’ve performed pretty well. There’s been a lot of blood spilled on this pair. But I’ll have to think about replacing them.

I also put on a thin pair of socks underneath a big pair of merino crew hunting socks. The thin socks underneath help to prevent  blisters. My pop taught me and I’ve found it works pretty well.

I think that the air outside is still again. The temperature on the dashboard is 4 degrees Celsius. For autumn this is good. Because the sky is full of stars the air will cool even more as we get into the inner valleys. Maybe a frost will have struck the river flats. The car engine starts to work as it climbs over a low pass and crosses into a new watershed.

On the eastern horizon above the silhouette of the mountains the sky has definitely begun to lighten. A dark shape on the road begins to scurry towards safety. It is a brush tailed opossum.

I now associate these early morning starts with the night life of our high country. The burst for cover of a the rabbit, the loping stride of the hare or the defiant stance of a ferret as it rears up tiny, in front of the great mechanical monster. When I was young the night was so full of mystery. Full of strange noises and interesting sights that lay hidden during daylight hours. But now that mystery is strangely gone and has been replaced by a practical knowledge of what goes on under the brush of moonbeams or shafts of starlight that have taken light years to reach us.

The guide says that the weather is not the best. It looks ok outside at the moment but he says that we might get some rain. I’ve just been over to the big window that looks out over the mountains. The sky is blue overhead and I can see that the clouds are moving quite fast. In the distance the peaks are covered in clouds.

Bill has his binoculars and he has spotted some fallow deer. One of them is a nice buck. The group are standing in some brown-grey brush probably a mile or so away. He has done very well to see them. I think he is determined to see a Red Stag from the lodge.

I took a look through his Kahles 8 x 42 binos and they seemed pretty good. The buck wasn’t doing much.

Tom and I’ll head back to our rooms and meet back with the guide in around 30 minutes time. The cook is getting us some lunch which we’ll take with us in the four wheel drive truck. I don’t have to take binos because the guide is going to provide us each with a pair of Swarovskis…I think they are 10x42 SwaroVision. I’ve got a pair of Swarovskis at home with the rangefinder built in. Pretty damn good binoculars.