As we travel along the coast road of the wild west coast, our guide keeps reminding us that we are entering another world, a world where people are unique and weird sometimes but always interesting and usually with time to lean on a fence post and take the time to have a yarn with someone.
So we called in on Bushman Pete, a pioneer of the early deer hunting days. "Back in the day", when deer farming was a mere twinkle in the eye of the odd rural entrepreneur, the good old boys of kiwi hunting hauled their deer out of the most remote forests with a unique variety of contraptions.
Deer are an introduced species and considered a pest because they destroy the native forest, early attempts to control the population meant that Deer Culling was a Government paid job, hunters would be paid by the tail. Eventually markets in the East for venison meat meant that deer recovery grew first as a meat industry where wild deer were hunted and shot by helicopter, then eventually caught alive and introduced to farms.
Bushman Pete showed us a DVD of the history of the deer and venison industry in New Zealand before inviting us to try his special "apple pies".
We had previously heard about the destruction of the NZ forest and the risk to native birds (most of whom who do not fly and so cannot escape introduced predators). A solution of the government is to drop a poison known as 1080 into the forest as a broad sweeping solution.
Opinion is divided between conservationists about the effectiveness and safety of this method. Bushman Pete and his wife Justine are opposed to the 108 poison drop and were not shy to present their opinion but both suggested we watch this documentary, Poisoning Paradise.
Which they served with locally made possum pies as a learning and discovery experience!!
We took a look through his museum and met the cute looking kiwi possum before chatting with a couple of locals and heading on our way to Hokitika to look at the Pounamu, eat ice cream and visit the museum.
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