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Maybe Clayton can give a brief synopsis on what is needed to bring in a rifle if flying into the NT OR hunting into the NT but flying in through another city?

I mentioned to JB that I could loan him anyt rifles/guns needed. He elected to do this. While there was a number of weeks before the hunt, the time was short for paperwork etc to be organised. But Clayton maybe can elaborate or inform us on this or otherwise.

Not bad timing considering three and half days of driving and 3,050 kms to get there! But it was actually two hours late, except a longer than I thought immigration and customs time for JB cut it back to 15 mins.

Yep too much stuff! But I had intended to stop before the airport and move my swag and duffel bag to the roof rack before hand. Arriving later prevented that. Two fridges is a large use of space. Only one brought meat back , and the second didn't freeze at all UNTIL I arrived home (!!!) and it was running from the power for a couple of days. Meat in it could have spoiled anyway. A borrowed fridge/freezer. Engels are so much better.

JB was incredibly good with his understanding of English, or at least good at covering when he didn't!

Fenced as in normal cattle fences. While at the time I didn't care with hindsight, I am disappointed to not do any fishing! A good excuse to make another trip and spend some time fishing on some of the rivers and estuaries. A boat does make the later more productive though. Also have been looking at some NT tourist websites and would love to visit some of the places I haven't before and revisit some others, some swimming holes, etc. My wife isn't a camping enthusiast so such trips are often difficult to get going.

The river here actually was a little unusual, with a lower river bed and another a metre higher on the opposite side. The river divided for a distance, with one flow being higher and rest lower. Some small waterfalls cascading down right near our camp.

One disappointment was not to get out the camp oven. We didn't have a camp fire at all in the camp. It was quite cool at night and a campfire does add a lot to a camp, and definitely should have got one going. There was a lot of dry grass, and I definitely did not want a bushfire on our host's property. Closer to the creek would have been safe as the grass was absent there. Not sure about firebans in the NT (?). I had hoped to cook up a nice campoven buffalo stew or curry but one needs to actually shoot a buffalo for meat for that.

And spend the time getting the coals organised. It is nice if in camp at lunch to get it organised, bury it with coals, and in the evening six hours later uncover it for a nice Sri Lankan curry, a goat leg roast, venison stew etc.

Not for JB but as usual the mosquitoes bit me, but only a dozen or so times on this trip. I had related to JB about my first trip to Gan Gan on the coast in NE Arnhemland and being bit several hundreds of times on my back ... mosquitoes do like me.

In a swag under the stars was glorious though. I've never much used a tent in the NT, but good to have one, and carrying at least mosquito nets is essential if they are there, there may be hundreds buzzing away.

I forgotten about the cornflakes that littered the ground almost everywhere. The dry grassy areas were sometimes a little better.

I mentioned in a post. But one reads or watches TV where people talk about walking in a circle ... they are so dumb .... yep .... we followed the dry creek North, at one point had to leave it as the bush was too thick beside it. Came to a dry clay hollow. Seeing some trees in the distance to the East thought the creek must have bent that way.Actually we were on a smaller creek not on the map which did peter out. The creek we wanted was further East. Somehow we managed to walk South again and hit the river we started from ... finding it, thought "Wow this is a big water hole. Walking along it, it went on and on and on, and eventually, thought something was wrong. Pulling oyt the GPS it showed we had walked a lovely loop back the way we have come ...

One should realise the sun was in the wrong direction when walking. Funny thing, later in the day heading back to the vehicle and track, I could really feel a pull to walk with a clockwise bent, it was almost physical. I have a compass on my watch strap and checked often. And when JB was walking in front, I could see he too was getting "pulled" to the clockwise, checking against the compass. It was strange. Never felt that before.

BTW this countryside here was flat and featureless except for tracks, fencelines, rivers. But one could always find one's way out by walking properly in a direction to strike a trackline.

Two younger bulls found in the forests during many kilometres of walking. Other than that, the herd on the wetlands, and the six buffalo running nearby our camp one morning.

There is another spot on the property which from Clayton's comments before I returned later which might be promising. Also we never checked large sections of the two creek systems.

I remarked in a post I did not think the slight metallic noise was enough to alert the bull. But these buffalo have been heavily hunted and are not the quiet Arnhemland buffalo that rarely see humans. They will run, flee, at the slightest scent, noise or sight. We learned this quickly. Only the two young bulls earlier in the forest stood around staring at us from a distance though. But JB's bull was definitely trotting off but thankfully did not know what had caused the noise and stopped to look back.

With buffalo, if they don't go down on the first or second shot, or at least stopped standing, yep, it's all guns shooting. If they're running, it could be hours to find them again if at all. My own buffalo will illustrate this.

Actually it was funny and made me nervous, that Clayton had told me, "good luck" with regards to JB wanting to bowhunt a buffalo bull and I had to back him up !!! Sometimes they fall over and sometimes they refuse to no matter what. JB however is an experienced bow hunter, including elephant, and showed me a very dramatic video on his phone from Zimbabwe, where his friend got squashed by an elephant, but was hunting again a week later with every rib broken and other injuries. So much for the weak "French" jokes we keep getting plagued by on the internet. A pity this video will probably nver be shown on the net by the outfitter who owns it, as it has to be the most dramatic I have ever seen.

I was more than pleased to. I really enjoyed the hunt and hunting but it would have been disappointing for JB not to get into some buffalo, and even better take home a bull.

The cattle station hunting is not as productive as the coastal wetland regions in Arnhemland. It can be hard hunting to get a bull in only a week, and some luck needed to. I think this bull was quite good for the area. On a nearby station an 'outfitter' operates and the photos of the trophy bulls are similar to this one. The landowner told me a few days later over three hundred buffalo had been shot on his station in recent times. Big efforts to remove a lot of them as pests.

That wasn't a problem at all. Was very enjoyable just being out hunting and in the bush.

Our hunting kit. John was using his famous double and no less that a 20kg rucksack full of whatever items we might use, let alone every pockets filled. A no nonsense guy, and a strong guy too. My kit was light, the 375, my bow and arrow, a knife, my binocs, a cam and a bottle of water. Not more. John acted as guide most of the time.

I will list out what was in the pack in a later post. A number of things, like an emergency radio beacon, emergency water purifier "strawer", plus stuff.

Most of the weight was water in the camelback. I drink a lot, sweated like a pig, dripped like a tap this hunt ... I can see now why some Brit guys wear a scarf, to catch the sweat and wipe ones brow. JB on the other hand doesn't drink much at all. I would collapse on the amout he only drinks.

As for being strong, from JB's stories of hunting in the Alps, imagine carrying not just one, but two chamois or moufflon for over ten kilometres up and down mountains ...

JB was a great pleasure to hunt with and in camp. We wasted hunting time talking too long in the evenings and at lunch. One reason we never got out fishing.

Have met up once before in Adelaide, once North of Oslo in Norway, now in the Top End, where next?

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John aka NitroX

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Govt get out of our lives NOW!
"I love the smell of cordite in the morning."
"A Sharp spear needs no polish"

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