FROM ISOLATED TO ISOLATION

It was reserved for us adventure fanatics, and signified an escape from the nine to five routine and busy day-to-day life. Not only is isolation something we're familiar with, but it's also something we spend our spare time in search of.

Back in March of 2020 that's exactly what my mate Chris and I were doing. It doesn't get much more remote than Fiordland, down in the south of New Zealand, so isolation is something we were expecting on our drive down to Te Anau. At that time, Covid was starting to spread through Europe and the first couple of cases had found their way to New Zealand.

There was very little information about it… nothing to worry about, ‘cos once we're on that chopper it won't affect us… how much could change in ten days anyways?

We'd been lucky enough to draw the Mount Tanilba Wapiti block for the second year in a row. The year prior we had made the most of seven days of sunshine by exploring a large part of the area around Three Duck Lake. It was an epic introduction to the Fiordland wilderness - but maybe not so representative of the real Fiordland. This year we planned to hunt the other half of the block. Most of our gear was dropped in the main valley that leads to Two Thumb Bay and to save us the climb we were dropped on the tops between Mount Alexandra and Mount Tanilba