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Published: March 12th 2020
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Okay, so. I did something today. We are at Blue Duck Station right now, which is quite literally in the middle of nowhere, without wifi or cell-reception.
It’s really beautiful, though. Reminds me a little of home.
And out here, at Blue Duck Station, cut off from civilisation, I made the executive decision to do something. So, I channeled my long-suppressed inner bavarian who wants to drink beer and shoot at things, and went on a hunt. A real stalking, rifle-carrying, ambushing hunt in the New Zealand bush. And it was great. I enjoyed it far more than I thought I would!
The guide was a super cool dude, and he has been hunting since he was a child, so he knew his shit. There was another guy with us, and that was it: The hunting-party. Fabulous.
We got into a buggy-thing and drove deep into the woods; the guide showed us how to shoot the rifle, and off we went to find us some game.
We were hunting goats, because they are a pest in New Zealand; they destroy a lot of the native plants, which is, as you can probably guess, not good.
We were quite lucky and found two mobs down in the valley pretty early on, and then we spent about an hour stalking down the mountain, trying not to get detected by any of the goats. Just a bunch of dudes, creeping through the bush, stopping for several minutes at a time when the goats were looking in our direction, and hoping the wind wouldn’t turn. I carried the gun!
When we were finally close enough, and still undetected, the guide set the rifle up and I got into position, which means I flopped the whole, entire length of my body down into mud and goat-shit.
And I shot a goat. A ‘perfect heart-shot’, to directly quote my guide. Yes, I’m pretty annoying about the fact that he called my shot perfect.
The other guy also shot a goat, but he was a little nervous, so he needed a couple shots.
So, we went and found our goats, and then the real fun began. Just as a heads-up, the ‘real fun’ in this case is quite graphic.
The guide would first behead the goat, then cut off the balls (for we had both shot male
goats, and he mentioned some people took the goat-balls and ate them as a delicatesse, which is fun), and then cut the belly open. I was actually not as disgusted as I thought I would be, and I found it quite educational in the end.
And then. Then came the gutting, which he didn’t do. No, of course we had to do that ourselves.
My goats ribcage was, also of course, flooded with blood because of my ‘perfect heart-shot’, so I had to submerge my hands in the Blood-Soup to get a grip on the heart and lungs, and I pulled. And pulled. You would not believe how hard it is to pull a goat’s guts out. It requires a lot of muscle-strength.
So, I managed to get the guts out. What follows next is the most metal moment of my entire existence, and you will find it absolutely disgusting.
The guide explained that it is a tradition with hunters to take a bite of the raw heart of their first kill. Yes, you read that right.
He handed me the heart. I proceeded to take a bite of the heart, the bullet I shot
still buried in it. Blood dripped down my chin, and some feral part of my brain felt weirdly empowered in that moment - not gonna lie, though, the rest of my brain felt very badass as well. I was emitting major Daenerys Targaryen vibes.
Next, he ‘made a backpack’ out of the goats, we put them on our backs and started walking. I had a big one, though, about 25kg, so I almost collapsed after the 300 meters or so. The guide went and got the buggy, we threw the goats on, and headed back to the lodge.
He showed us how to skin and butcher a goat (once again, very educational) and he sawed a horn off my goat’s head (because yes, I wanted a trophy. Who am I).
I boiled it and pulled the bone out, so now I have a horn! It’ll be interesting trying to get that through customs at the airport.
So yes, it was quite a day. My hands still smell of Blood-Soup as I’m writing this.
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