Wild Garlic Recipe: Kimchi

It's that time again! The Northern Monkey and myself are afield in search of, I know this sounds unlikely, vegetables.  

Our perennial favourite is Wild Garlic/Allium Ursinum, aka ramson, jack-in-the-hedge, buckrams, wood garlic,  and where applicable, ‘bear’s garlic’. This year we've upped our game and so far have collected three rubbish sacks full. One for the 'Trophy Room' or as you may know it chest-freezer, and two for our favourite preserve. 

Salads and Omelettes aside our favourite way to eat wild garlic, has long been KimChi. We're now in year four of Kimchi making and have a few tips to pass on.

South Korea consumes 1.85 million metric tons of kimchi annually, or nearly 80 pounds a person.

I wouldn't dream of preparing any foraged food stuffs without recourse to Hunter, Angler, Gardener, Cook, the website of my wild food guru Hank Shaw. Look up any game or foraged food and Hank has blazed a trail. In this instance Hank is fermenting with Ramps (Allium tricoccum) which from the picture look a little closer to the Spanish Calçot, so he neatly folds the green fronds over the white stems. Hank also cooks by weight - we cook by volume - so you'll be better off following his proportions.

We used:
Two bin bags worked out to roughly 44 litres of leaves, stems, buds, and flowers.
We add liquidised Ginger - lots - the biggest, freshest root in the asian supermarket - the stuff in the regular supermarket is crap.
Sesame Seeds 500g/1.1lbs - last bag in the shop.
Korean Pepper flakes 250g or a whole jar.

Hank adds a couple of spoons of sugar, lots of people forego the sugar and use a liquidised Pear or an Apple. Both have worked well for us. 

We add rice flour, beaten into some boiling water, allowed to thicken and then cool, wizzed up with the Ginger, to give the ferment a head start.

After we've given it a rinse in cold water, we Brine the chopped leaves to kill off any other bacteria that might be malingering.

For the Brine - 1 cup of salt to 5 cups of water.  

We put a plate and a weight on top of the leaves to ensure they submerge,



the other advantage is once the brine has taken affect, you can see at a glance that the leaves and stems have decreased in volume, they'll also become a bit darker and intensify in flavour.

VERY IMPORTANT rinse and rinse again, in year two we didn't rise nearly enough and the Kimchi was way too salty.

We use a mix, usually 2-to-1, of Fish sauce and Soy sauce 

VERY IMPORTANT Kikkoman is the minimum bid for Soy sauce, if you use that Chinese crap or the rubbish the supermarkets pass off as soy sauce, you literally only have yourself to blame.

"If a Korean goes to space, kimchi must go there, too, without kimchi, Koreans feel flabby. Kimchi first came to our mind when we began discussing what Korean food should go into space."
Kim Sung Soo, a Korea Food Research Institute scientist.

A week or two seems to be the online consensus for how long it takes to let the ferment do its work. I'd say it was edible from this point but, longer is stronger.  I've got kimchi in my fridge that's well over a year old, it's fierce. 

While most sources will point you in the direction of well established woodlands, Wild Garlic is a marker species for ancient woodlands, our main collection areas are by steams - wild garlic loves damp ground. I'd always associated it with shady forrest floors, but 'up north' its growing in bright sun light on the banks of a stream. Follow your nose, you'll find it.

More soon
Your Pal
SBW

Squirrel Hunting In The UK Pt1

Pests: Invasive and Domestic

"When the buffalo are gone, we will hunt mice,...for we are hunters, and we want our freedom."
Chief Sitting Bull: Warrior / Philosopher / Statesman

"When the nanny state tells us meat only comes in packets, I will hunt Tree Rabbits with a pellet gun. It's the way I roll”

SBW: Plumber / Philosopher / Blogger

Invasive, destructive and delicious Sciurus Carolinensis: the American Grey Squirrel, is a very common sight in the south of England and they've reached as far north as The Kingdom of Fife. As an invasive species in the UK there is no closed season - we can hunt them 365 days a year. While their antics in city parks are certainly amusing; they are a proper pest to the farming and forestry communities, a carrier of fatal disease to the native Red Squirrels, and a delicious source of free protein to me. Well when I say 'free' like so many pastimes you need a few bits and pieces to get going.

"Squirrel hunting is for the patient, 
and for the person easily entertained by observation"

James George

I thought they were vegetarian too! Pic found on Reddit 

The first thing you've got to hunt down is a place where you have permission to hunt. It took me a while to find a permission that was within reasonable traveling distance of my home and I still don't have a really near one.

They love that MDPE,  once they've had a good chew on this feeder, 

they'll eat the grain.

I had a permission where the family owned a nursery and squirrel damage was an easily defined cost. I’ve hunted them on a Pheasant shoot where they eat the Pheasant feeders first and then the feed, and they've vandalised the water supply. Maybe you could use MDPE as bait?

A vegetarian owns my main permission; she has a passion for woodland management and the squirrels and deer are inhibiting regrowth of her coppice. You just never know. Keep asking. The BASC website - the British Association for Shooting and Conservation -  has some useful pointers, and a template permission slip.

Once you’ve got somewhere to hunt you need a lethal weapon that can make a humane kill.

Catapult: If you're really well practised. Not I.

Shotgun: Very popular in the USA but you need a licence/certificate in the UK and due to the noise you may end up  hunting them one at a time.

.22LR rimfire rifle: Very  popular American squirrel calibre, as the bullets can easily travel on for miles not such a good idea shooting up into the trees here in the highly populated UK. So common sense safety rules pretty much limit you to shooting squirrels on the ground with rimfires. I find it hard enough to find them without limiting the search to terra-firma.
  

Fire Arms Certificate (FAC) Air Rifle:
Lots of cash, and paperwork for unproven benefit. I wouldn't bother.

.17HMR rifle bullets have a tendency to explode on contact so in some ways safer than the .22LR, but they can go even further so only applicable if you've got a lot of land to shoot over.    

My weapon of choice is the off-the-shelf air rifle (limited to 12ft/lbs); you don't need a licence so you can lend and borrow them, they are easily powerful and accurate enough to make a clean, humane kill on a Squirrel that never knew you were there. I'm a big fan of the Pre-Charged-Pneumatic school of air rifle design as they take very little practice to become accurate.

Due to the UK's firearms laws and high population density Air rifles have always been disproportionately popular here so there are loads, both new and secondhand, to choose from.  Well-known brands; English, German Czech, and Swedish, all very accurate and all pretty costly at £500 - £1,200+. There are even more brands (most quite accurate) of spring powered rifle from about a third of the cost and a middle ground where the rifles use a gas-ram system, [which is similar to the rebound dampers on a motorcycle's shocks,] to provide the puff. You pays your money, you takes your choice.
A special mention goes to the next air rifle I'm going to buy - The IMP which is a reengineered german rifle tweeked by Sandwell Fieldsports at just under £400 - look on youtube for reviews 

To keep things in perspective: Hubert Hubert of the Rabbit Stew blog regularly feeds himself with an air rifle that cost less than £100 S/H, and a second hand scope.

There are four main choices of calibre .177, .20, .22 and .25 (all % of an inch) the smaller ones fly straighter, the bigger ones land with more of a thump. All have to be pointed at the right spot to ensure a clean kill. Lots of great .22's available second hand, for the others you'd have to scout around a bit. Factor in the price of a service, it often makes a HOOJ difference. Buy the best you can afford and only cry once.

A word to the wise - it's YOUR RESPONSIBILITY to make sure your rifle doesn't exceed the 12ft/lbs limit, some second hand guns have been 'fettled' get a proper gun shop to test it for you on their chronograph (either free with purchases or about £2 and ask for a receipt).

Top-tip - once you've bought your gun give up reading air gun magazines - they are very good at convincing you that a new rifle is a 'must have' and your scope is crap.

Before Hunting: Four things you MUST remember.

RULE I: ALL GUNS ARE ALWAYS LOADED

RULE II: NEVER LET THE MUZZLE COVER ANYTHING YOU ARE NOT WILLING TO DESTROY

RULE III: KEEP YOUR FINGER OFF THE TRIGGER UNTIL YOUR SIGHTS ARE ON THE TARGET

RULE IV: BE SURE OF YOUR TARGET AND WHAT LIES BEYOND IT

"Safety is something that happens between your ears, not something you hold in your hands." 

Jeff Cooper

I’d add RULES V and VI:
V: FORGET THE 'AIR' BIT - IT’S A RIFLE THAT CAN KILL OR MAIM.

VI: THERE IS NO ACIDENTAL DISCHARGE - ONLY NEGLIGENT DISCHARGE

If you follow these simple rules, to the letter, every time, at least any accidents will not be of the gun kind and your safe practice will be a credit to you when you start stalking deer with a centre fire rifle. [you will].

Top Tip: Insurance

A very good idea, and it shows landowners that you’re serious. Offering the kind of reassurance that gets permission. The best deal I've found is from The Scottish Association For Country Sports you're covered for just about everything and its less than half the price I used to pay.

Here’s the rifle I use and some of my kit.

 Parker Hale Phoenix in .177 - £850 + new or good luck finding one S/H.

Upside: Accurate, and being a lever action very quick to get a second shot off

Downside: A bit heavy and 60 shots per fill.

The air rifle I chopped in to buy it. Air Arms S400 in .177 - £400+

Upside: Very accurate - more than one pellet through the same hole

Downside: No magazine - just takes one pellet at a time

Great rifle for Rabbits and still hunting, not quite so handy for stalking Squirrels through the undergrowth.

Camo clothing / Face cover/ Gloves

Lots of people have shot prey while dressed in orange jump suits, so that 'I'm a sniper me' outfit isn't essential, but some kind of face cover seems to make a lot of difference and gloves can help too.

My DPM (disruptive pattern material – English army camo) jacket was £1 and I waterproofed it for another couple of quid.

A Call

These little devices are the equivalent of a 'friend request' from a pair of nineteen-year-old nurses, not guaranteed to get attention, but squirrels, like suburban dads live in hope and may well wander over to see what’s going on. I use the PRIMOS call that comes with a CD to practice along with. It’s a lot of fun practicing in London parks and my backyard. About £15


"I don't think paralysis [of the electrical grid] is more likely by cyberattack than by natural disaster. And frankly the number-one threat experienced to date by the US electrical grid is squirrels." - John C. Inglis, Former Deputy Director, National Security Agency 2015.07.09 

Let's Go Hunting: Methods and Tactics

Mr Squirrel is one of life's opportunists so they only building a shelter if he has to. Their preference is to doss down in cracks, hollows and voids in the branch forks of trees but if none are to their liking they build 'Dreys' there. They look like a big untidy birds nests.
On my permission there is the best naturally occurring hidey-hole (often has a tail poking out) would only be shoot-able from a public footpath OUTSIDE my permission. Easy to get over exited, but it's not worth a firearms conviction for a meals-worth of Squirrel. Your rifle, and your pellet’s final destination must stay within the confines of the land you have permission to hunt on.

Hiding/sniping AKA Still Hunting

Basically choose a site where you can sit comfortably, for a couple of hours without moving, that overlooks the runway squirrels use between food and home. Wait.

Top Tip: squirrel's like to 'lay the table' for dinner, the wood where I took this picture was littered with stumps, almost every one of which had been used as a dinning table

Guess who kept his packed lunch here?

Spot and Stalk

Walk very quietly through the woods, when you see a squirrel freeze, then as the squirrel gets bored of looking at you and looks away, shoot him.

Top-Tip: Grey's are considered to have a jumping range of eight feet (2.43m)

Over Bait

A bit like still-hunting but much easier, monkey nuts and/or peanut butter/Nutella are irresistible to our bushy tailed friends with those Fat Balls that people put out for songbirds not too far behind. Once they've found your bait pile they will keep coming back to in at regular intervals as they move its content to their dray.
Top-Tip: You don't need to shoot them the first time you see them, they'll be back.

Agitation AKA Dreying (needs two of you)

You find the squirrels hiding place or Drey and using a set of drain rods (the day job), an old fishing rod, or a long thin sapling and give it a vigorous poke. The squirrels will come out to see what all the fuss is about and shout abuse. Your co-hunter shoots them. Be Careful. My top-tip is for one of you to stand on either side of the tree as Squirrels tend to run round to the other side as it's the shortest distance to cover.
Really Be Careful.

Now all you need to do is Practice. 

The Top-ist -Tip of All: Passers By

Thankfully most country people are against invasive species and, once they get talking with you, tend to be very supportive. Much of the time they will go out of their way to be nice after you've charmed your way past their initial suspicions - just as we think they are either going to be stuck-up toffs or yokels involved in , um-er... 'animal husbandry', they probably think we are the advance party for a ravening horde; come to eat their young. Please remember in all your dealings with the locals; you are every hunter and your behaviour is every hunter’s behaviour. If that's not incentive enough - they hold the keys to your next permission. Happy hunting!

More hunting and gathering tales to come

Your pal

SBW

Felt Recoil Test: Sauer 404 XT v's XTC

The OMR A reader of this blog, who became a real-life pal, and I have been having a long [few years now] conversation about rifle stock design and in the sprit of 'a little less conversation, a little more action please' we made the pilgrimage to Ivythorn Sporting to send a few down range. 

Our plan was start at the top and work down. A few hearty thumps to the shoulder from the 375 H&H later, and we turned our attentions to the 404 from Sauer. 

Posh timber aside, these are Sauer's top of the line offerings: 404 XTC and the 404 XT. The 404 is a funny thing, like the Blaser R8 it looks a bit 'space-age laser-gun' in photos, but less so in real life. I wasn't too sure how I felt about the look of it.  I'm now convinced it's an ergonomic marvel. Once you shoulder one it's a revelation. Fit to function seen through new eyes.

CZ in 375 H&H Yee Gods!! People shoot these things for fun? OMR (One Man Riflemaker) took one very reluctant shot, just to be able to say that he had, I foolishly took five and feeling a little discombobulated gave the rest of the rounds back. Recoil adverse neither of us can afford to slide any further down the rankings at our respective target clubs. I'm sure the 375's perceived recoil is negligible when you're firing at an enraged charging Cape Buffalo for the third time, but at the range? Flinch-Tastic. Rather you than me.

OMR and I had taken the precaution of bulking up on pies to absorb recoil. 

What my daughter calls my  'Wannabe Alaskan' hat and beard combo in full effect. 

Even a full spec 404 in carbon with the fluted barrel, and no moderator chambered in 30-06 wasn't the hammer blow to the shoulder I was expecting.
Shooting rounds in the 6-7mm range, these things must feel like a losely held 22LR.

The XT Carbon surprised me too at 2.8 kilograms / 6.1 lbs there's really not a lot to it. I imagine it would make a wonderful Hill Stalking rifle.
Steve from Ivythorn let us pour a cup of water over the pistol grip for a 'Cold Wet Hands' test, despite looking as smooth as a smooth thing's smooth bits, it felt every bit as grippy as an oiled walnut stock if not a little more so.

There is at least one stock manufacturer claiming that carbon fibre has recoil damping properties, so far my cynicism of this claim is unbounded. Asking about, everyone I've spoken to who has actually laid carbon with their own hands has laughed when I've repeated the claim. One fella went as far as saying 'if you want damping you'd be better off with fibreglass, but that would cost you all the weight-saving you've just spent all that money on, re-think the ergonomics, transmission of energy is key’.  

During the endless Blaser debates online, all kinds of hilarious objections to their radical design have been raised and disproved. What they all come down to is ‘I want a rifle that looks like a rifle’ Which really means ‘I want the comfort of the familiar’. There's another example from my work life. In the UK the specification for the position of power sockets has changed, they’re now a little higher up the wall above the skirting board, client after client has complained that they don't like the new height, a few months later they all say its actually more convenient. I’m not immune to this myself. When I first started spending time in Spain, I found the light switches counter intuitive, running my hand over the wall in the dark looking for the switch. In the UK we place them where your eye falls, in Spain they’re where your hand falls. Reach out at hand height and there it is.

With the 404 XT Sauer have entered a  new era of rifle ergonomics, what looks a little strange at first sight feels just right after the first couple of shots. The stock and cheek piece are only the start of their plan to make a rifle tuned by the individual shooter to the individual shooter. Interesting times.

Big shout to Steve at Ivythorn Sporting for letting us put our sticky fingers all over this stock[s] and use his range. If you want to test out the 404 or anything else from his enormous choice he does a deal where you can have any of his rifles or shot guns sent to your RFD no obligation or if you're within range of Somerset you can try before you buy. He also serves the best coffee of any gunshop I've ever been to in the UK, the USofA or even Spain. 

happy new year from sunny spain

your pal

SBW

As Seen At The Gun Show: Holt's Of London

Yeah yeah been a while I know, life. Life, I tell you, it keeps getting in the way.
The Bambi Basher and I used to make it a habit to visit the Holt's December sale and sink a few libations after we'd sharpened our appetites on the vol au vent, and party fancy's served. Sadly we've both been beset with that curse of the drinking classes, work, and have missed the tradition for the last couple of years.

Not to have my enthusiasm dampened I popped along to what turns out to be the last Holt's in Hammersmith [they're moving to Blackheath for the next sale].

The Holt's salesroom never disappoints, there were as ever, acres of fine English shotguns but lacking the tempo, or fiscal temperament, for them my interest is in the riflery.
Some epic swag on offer this time



A Volly-Gun in 22LR was curio I'd not seen before. If you're like me, the kind who can be relied on for one sweet trigger pull per session, it could well be the sporting advantage we've been looking for?



While an acquaintance was showing me around the pistol table I saw this little fella, a Charge Tester. You can verify the potency of your powder against it's spring.





For a price approaching the the value of a nicely appointed Casa a Piscina in Spain this magazine-fed spin on the double rifle was on show.

As regular readers know my champagne tastes on a beer income veer more in the direction of the take-down rifle. 

Holt's will always be, primarily about English guns, with a few high-end german pieces. So it was nice to see a couple of examples of the work of a South African 'smith of growing renown Bernie Laubscher, look him up, very highly thought of in his homeland.
If the examples on offer were anything to go by a collectable of the future, and with an expected sale price of £2000 - £2500 something of a bargain too. SOLD £3,400.00

Fancy a bit of history with your take-down rifle? How about this? 

 

Chatting with one of the curators revealed that this rifle would have cost the price of two four bedroom houses in central-ish London at the time. You could barely by a parking space for its sale price of £36,000.00  these days. 

There's alway one eccentric offering that people will bid on just to be able to tell their pals that they own one, and this year it was this triple barrelled, er, duck gun?

Wouldn't be Holt's without some displays of the 'Out of Office Plumage' of the eccentric sporting type.

More soon
Your pal
SBW

Unboxing Review: Helikon-Tex Raider 20L Day Pack

With the excuse provided by my long postponed return to the classroom I 'urgently needed' a new pack. It needed to be a little wider than the 5.11 Tactical Rush 12 and smaller than the Markhor Elk Mountain. All the usual contenders were considered, and rejected on cost grounds. One of my target shooting buddies who introduced me to Helikon-Tex gear from Poland and has their equivalent of the Rush 12 I already have that's not wide enough for the binders that my workbooks come in. [See how the reasons for a new pack just drip from my lips]

Then I saw helicon-tex's new pack The Raider, it was on pre-order and only available in limited colours, it's a bit wider and has a stretchy over-panel they call a 'beaver tail' which is like a little Mystery Ranch load-sling, built in. Small packs have always had one annoying snag to them: by the time you've packed all the rest of the crap you need to lug around with you, there's nowhere to put your jacket. We've all tried that threading-a-piece-of-550 para-cord-through-the-little-loops thing, kind of works but I've never really found it that satisfactory. The stretch panel solves that at a stroke. If you're cycling it's a neater way to store your helmet when you're not riding. Based on that, the dimensions, and price I ordered one, and got a pack that so far has totally exceeded my expectations. I'd even go as far as telling them they've under sold it, their description online doesn't even mention some of its best features.


With double duvet for scale.


Out of the box it's a solid little thing, and bit of poking around revealed an aluminium stay that stiffens up the centre of the back panel, I've not tried bending it to the contour of my spine yet, but I'll give that a go in the next week or so. I've had a few little packs they all tend to sag down your back, the Rush 12 being the only notable exception so far. The Raider sits well even without the sternum strap being done up, and with it is limpet-like. The stay-bending is only going to improve that. The slight increase in width over other packs in this size really seems to help stabilise the load.


Cheap, and many not so cheap, packs have those stretch cuff pockets for a Nalgene sized water bottle, but make them out of mesh, which; snags, rips and inevitably fails long before the rest of the pack. Not so the Raider. Looks like a good stowage for a fishing rod tube.


A soft-lined pocket on the pack's face, and in the main compartment there's a slip for your laptop, with a pad at the bottom to offer that little bit of extra protection.



I either live in london where while it rains less often we actually get a greater volume of water falling from the sky, or in Yorkshire where its either raining, or about to rain. So I was chuffed to bits when after a couple of days of carrying the Raider around I found another zipper which was hiding a rain cover.

Another other use for rain covers is to keep the packs straps and buckles from being caught in the conveyor belts and overheads when flying hand luggage only on the cheap airlines. They also make a useful improvised container for foraged roadside fruits, and when the amount of tat [school books] you're trying to lug around exceeds the bags capacity they keep everything onboard.



On design, cost, and, construction the Raider is an absolute winner, it's made of branded Cordura with YKK zips. Its even got a meaningful hip belt.

I hope they bring out an 'Airborne  Raider',  perfectly the dimensions of carry-on luggage for the cheap airlines, I've got packs I'd happily sell to finance buying one.

More Reviews, my long overdue return to both the target range,
and our archery camp very soon
Your pal
SBW

PS I've just looked and Helikon-Tex now have the Raider in five colours and six different camo's.

On This Day 8th September 1880 WDM Bell Was Born

WDM 'Karamojo' Bell. Walter Dalrymple Maitland Bell. Unremarkable looking fella, born with balls of steel.

His first book: The Wanderings of an Elephant Hunter is a collection od essays he wrote for Country Life magazine

You can read my review here and the full text here

Karamojo Safari: is his full length telling of his adventures
My Review and the Full Text

Bell wrote for a few publications, including a couple of pieces for the NRA's American Rifleman

Small Bores versus Big Bores.  full text here

There's something of a controversy about the piece, my thoughts Here

In exciting news for Bell aficionados from Safari Press there is now another collection of his writings.
Incidents from an Elephant Hunter's Diary

More Soon
Your pal
SBW

Review: The New Zealand Wilderness Hunter

Over the course of this blog I've been in email correspondence with a few readers and ever so often these connections result in something new and unexpected.

A good few years ago I conversed with a chap on the far side of the world, one thing led to another and we kind of lost touch. A couple of weeks ago I was reminded of our mutual interest in WDM Bell and sent him an email update. He wrote back and in passing mentioned that he'd made it into print. I was intrigued enough to order a copy of one of his books. It was with a little trepidation that I turned the first page; anyone can write a witty insightful email, turning out a whole book of it asks a little more of the author, as I've found in my many stop-start attempts.

Phew. He smashed it.

Dear readers; Hunter philosophers, shooters, wild-foodists, and fans of adventure writing. I bring you James Passmore's  The New Zealand Wilderness Hunter.

While we undoubtedly live in a golden age of ammunition we just as certainly don't live in the golden age of writing about hunting. In print, Stephen Rinella, Steve Bodio, and John Gierach aside, most of it is so 'me too', the same tired tropes about 'tradition', 'passion' and the sickly sentimentalism of 'family'. The ex banker who found happiness in the wisdom of his fishing ghillie, the ballsy chick who hunts private estates, the smug hipster visiting his hillbilly relatives, yet another pastiche of Capstick or Hemmingway. Yawn.
Online things are even worse; lacking the discipline of a editors stern scalpel, a hideous 'style' has developed. As moron apes lackwit, and every passing mouth-breather positions himself as an 'expert'. All re-telling the work of the one before, each bad facsimile a little less distinct.
On the far side of the world the Kiwi literary hunting tradition has no greater proponent than Barry Crump, yarn spinner extraordinaire, often described to me as 'the Kiwi's Kiwi, how we'd like to see ourselves'. Crump churned 'em out too, selling a million books into a home market of four million people. Even if his books didn't quite come free with every box of ammo, I'm told Crump's tales of life as a deer culler can be found in almost every home with a rifle, and set the expectation of kiwi hunters for generations to come.

James Passmore's book walks a very different path over the same ground and is all the better for it. There are lots of books that attempt to capture the reverence that exposure to the fecund majesty of the woods brings, I couldn't put this one down. The tales are told in a modest insightful way, JP has obviously spent a hooj amount of time afield, has nothing to prove, but presents a series of observations, often prompted by small errors that lead to larger consequences. I got the impression of someone who'd done a lot, and incorporated each and every insight into an evolved best practice. Cautious and thoughtful as he intwines the emotional and philosophical landscapes with the misty hills and hollows of the unforgiving wilderness of the south island. JP brings us something different in  hunting writing;  some deer are just for the pot, sometimes its a trophy he's after, always it's to immerse himself in the wilderness. The stories are told with equal verve, some of his biggest tales end with the smallest deer. He conjures an unspoken reverence for wild places.

The book wouldn't be from NZ if it didn't also capture some of the eccentricity of his fellow countrymen.

'The old men rose up out of the glacier-fed river, pale and wrinkled, carrying trim Day-Glo coloured packs, and picked their way through the clearing over the tussock grass and bracken. They were both stark naked except for their boots. Dangling from their packs were coils of expensive climbing ropes.
They walked shamelessly up to the hut. I was sitting outside holding a tin cup of tea and watching the late afternoon light over the mountain range; sombre and purple. It was the middle of a pre-roar trip in March, and it was still warm. They both greeted me matter of factly. "Is this a public hut or a private one?" one of them asked.
I regarded the elderly naked climbers for a moment, and then replied honestly.
"It's a public hut" I said " But we do have a dress code".'

More soon
Your pal
SBW

PS Amazon list his other book but not this one, I ordered mine from the publisher and it arrived within a week. halcyonpublishing.co.nz

PPS I cannot recommend Barry Crump's 'A Good Keen Man'  1960 highly enough, a great tale well told.