The rest of Monday evening was spent with a cup of tea and a map, planning the two remaining hunting days. The plan was to drive down along the Wairau River and hunt up Coldwater Creek. This area was a bit further down the Wairau River than the area I hunted in the last time I was here (Connors Creek). Dave had hunted up Judges Creek (the neighbouring valley to Coldwater Creek) and shot chamois many times before, but had never been to Coldwater Creek. So I guess he was about as excited as I was to see new land and if there were any chamois in the area:-) After a long drive we parked the car in the mouth of Coldwater Creek and started to walk up the creek (red dots on the map). The black square on the map is where we camped, the black circle is where it all happened:-) Further info on the following pictures...

Wairau River.

The road along the Wairau River.

Coldwater Creek was a bit bushy and narrow in the beginning..

..but as we walked further it started to open up..

After about 1 km the creek opened up and the view was amazing; the bottom of the creek was relativily flat, with a small river twisting up the creek, surrounded by high mountains on each side with hillsides of shingle faces and green grass. After what Dave had told me, this was what chamois country looked like...

After a short while we decided to leave our backpacks in the valley and climb up one of the hillsides to look for signs of chamois, and glass the area with our binoculars..