In Search of Sika

IT was mid-April 2017 and ex-tropical cyclone Cook was pounding the North Island of New Zealand with unseasonably heavy rainfall. I was there to hunt the sika roar, but it seemed like I had spent most of the month sitting around waiting for bad weather to pass. After too many days stuck in my van reading books and wandering aimlessly around the streets of Taupo like some unemployed delinquent, I finally cracked. Despite flood swollen rivers cutting many of the tracks in the Kaimanawas and Kawekas there was still plenty of sika country to be had and before long the old van was rattling down Clements Mill Road, that gravel forestry road that has long been written into NZ sika hunting folklore.

It was still raining as I loaded my pack with a week’s worth of food and gear, locked the van and set off down the trail. Despite the weather, there were a still few cars at the trailhead and during a break in the rain an hour later I could hear the throb of rotors in the distance. The helicopter operators working out of Poronui Station