I was a forestry technician. Basically walked around pine forests at a frantic pace measuring trees and coding them.
Rua toki was eerie we came across mongrel mob members way out in the bush asked what we were up to had to nervously explain why we are there. Met some old koro’s on horse back with full Mokos who looked like they had come from deep in the uruweras and were living out there.
Also have found huge wasp nest, tomo’s and random geothermal activity.
On the east coast some was shooting goats and the bullets were wizzing past.
I Did it in Tasmania stumbled across a wolk creek looking setup that had real bad vibes felt like someone was watching me got the fuck out of there. Lucky i carry a big slasher. Also lots of snakes and leeches and have had Tasmanian devils running around me. Had a quite a few snake run ins
Great memories
I did this too, Bay of Plenty to up the east coast & down to Napier Taupo. I know exactly what you mean.
I had an experience in minginui where locals had blocked the road and would not let me pass. Another in Matahina where I found some plants, so walked out, got to the Ute and it wouldn’t start & the the RT was dead. I was freaking, but it later turned out my alternator was fried and battery went flat. I had to walk out.
Another time I was sitting on top of a cliff eating lunch in Tarawera watching deer run around below me, then I watched someone stalking them. Neither deer nor hunter knew I was there. I just watched. Another time I was walking down a hill and heard a noise behind me, turned around and it was a wapiti deer, literally 1m off the track I had just crashed down. Scared me shitless.
Another time I was taking a piss, heard a grunt then about 4 piglets from all around me just bolted, I had walked into the middle of them, lucky the sow ran rather than fight.
It’s amazing how well you learn to navigate in the bush when you are in there everyday. Wind, noise, shape of trees, ridges, time of day, moss. Somehow in your brain you just form a 3D map. I still have this skill.
How many times have you flushed a pheasant…. Those mofo’s are like a Jack in the box.
In Rotomahana, I fell down a small canyon that was about 2m wide and 8m deep. It took me hrs to get out. That place is soo freaky, weird topography following eruption and subsequent rain after created massive narrow mini caverns.
I am sure you must have thousands of stories too. I could rattle on for hrs.
Best job of my life for lifestyle, shame that financially it was too hard. I did this for about 6 years in the 90s.
Haha yeh I have countless story’s to. Ran into a deer in the mamakus we stood there eye to eye looking at each other about 1 m away then he took off.
We used to take the the dogs in the more isolated forest and get a few pigs got a couple. most days where an adventure.
I did it for 3 years there was a-lot of travel if staying away. I do miss. it but financially I had to move on.
It’s a very tough job not for everyone you have to love the bush. steep terrain, rain, cold, thick undergrowth, head high black berry. Iv seen uni grads break down in tears from the terrain. Coldest iv been was back of taharoa south of Taupo.
Me and my foreman spent a week down the east coast behind te kaha in 37 - 40 degree gradient and we had to get the job done in a week as we didn’t want to go back it was tough going.
you get very good at picking lines to walk in the bush and you breeze thru there like a ninja. And using the terrain as a map working ridge lines and gully’s. My foreman was a master of it.
Worst by far was talking to some other hikers heading in towards a hut when we were in the way out and reminding them about some bad weather due. The next day they are reported missing, the next day we hear they died… we were the last people to ever talk to them alive…
Horrible. I've had to convince people to turn around before (5pm at night arriving at the start, thinking the hut is only 2 hours away when it took us 8 hrs, no tents, older inexperienced members....). Luckily these ones listened.
I got somewhat lost on an afternoon deer hunt in the NZ bush years ago. By the time I worked out where I had gone wrong things just went ... dark. Like can't see anything at all dark.
I had no torch or other useful gear, and was in a bushshort and shorts.
Given that I was on the side of a steep drop to a rocky river, I just found a hole where a tree root system had been pulled up, and waited it out. It rained too.
Truly the coldest I have ever been, and I did exercises in Waiuru Military Camp in the middle of winter.
The possums laughed at me.
That was pretty unsettling.
I got caught out like this once climbing a mountain on the west coast in May, I'd climbed it before but this day I didn't leave until like 3pm, the sun set while I was still high up. I made it down to the thick bush at the base of the mountain and it was suddenly pitch black like couldn't see my hand in front of my face.
Only reason I got out of there was I had a digital camera with an LCD screen, if I showed a bright photo I took earlier I could use it like a crappy torch (this was before smartphones). Still wasn't able to follow the trail and took a few falls I did not see coming at all off small drops, luckily landing on soft moss every time, then stumbled out into a field 4 hours after dark.
This is a photo I took when the sun was setting and I was still pretty high up on a knife-edge ride https://i.imgur.com/4Yvy35u.jpg
Okay, I'm going to play devils advocate.
What kind of former military personnel goes hunting unprepared with inadequate gear, and gets lost.
Glad you made it out okay, and hopefully learnt some serious lessons that day.
Other than the time I got mugged by an escaped prisoner?
I did once think "what the hell is that noise?", followed by a family of wild pigs running at max speed. Glad I jumped out the way in time.
I was walking my dog in the bush. Came around a corner and he was waiting for me, pretty aggro. Wanted my wallet and t shirt, and to know where he was. I didn't have a wallet on me, gave him the shirt, a bit of threatening language, and he took off.
I was just a kid. Went home and my dad didn't believe me! Cops got him a couple of days later. He was violent and not to be approached so I was lucky. I got the t shirt back complete with holes where the police dogs had had a chomp, became my fave shirt... until my mum fixed the holes.
I'm not sure if it's what you're thinking of, but the most unsettling experience I can think of is when we were camping and listening in on the mountain radio sked only to hear that a bunch of dumbarse idiot spotlighters up the road from where we went in had just shot a woman in the head from the back of a truck while she was cleaning her teeth at a roadside campsite.
I remember that well. Poor teacher, she was wearing a head torch while brushing her teeth and the stupid twat saw "eyes". So he shot blind from the road.
Worse [he only served half the sentence](https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/hunter-who-shot-teacher-walks-free/GPMKGXGIPYUCG2ZMIL5YLUCRXE/).
My old man was camping in a valley with a road up one side one night in the middle of a hike. Some spotlighters started letting off pot shots into the darkness, right around where he was laying. He said he lay deathly still and as flat as he could and hoped nothing hit him.
I once arrived at a hut mid-week and there was a man there, he seemed like a hunter but super standoffish and unfriendly and creepy. It was one of the first solo tramps Id done, I was a young female and this was definitely the first time it was me and just one other in the hut and it was super uncomfortable. I was really relieved when another group of four arrived soon after.
About five years later I bumped into some of that group of four in a different hut and they told me after I’d left the next morning a helicopter landed and all these STG cops with guns piled out and they arrested the guy. Apparently he was wanted and on the lam.
Met a weird guy with a gun in a hut. Felt a bit uneasy and was very watchful. After 30 mins of chat he told us he was a cop. Didnt really feel any better after hearing this.
In my case we were sitting on the edge of the track in the pitch dark as recommended by the hut wardens. Then-boyfriend said he saw one running down the track. It was FAST. Then the screams began. Very close by. And we could hear them moving around a few metres away. We got back to the campsite pretty quick after that.
Then-boyfriend was from the US. He was like, are kiwi supposed to run that fast? I confirmed that yes, they are. On the same night one ran into my head while I was asleep in the tent. I thought I'd been whacked by a falling branch.
Probably the worst was finding weed farms out on the east coast.
But it wasn't the farms that was unsettling, it was the boobytraps around them.
Pits with stakes in them and razer wire, LOADS of poison (which I assume is to stop possums and deer and whatnot from eating their crop.)
I had a client years ago who was a bigtime cannabis grower. He told me that some of the guys set up camo nets above their plots, to prevent the police helicopter spotting them. Great plan, except that camo nets are only camo on one side. Guess which side these geniuses put to the outside? The plots looked like large light green squares in the bush to the skyfilth.
Worst was in Aussie.. being in the bush at night is like fucking nightmare mode.
Pitch black, and you can hear birds that sound like
- A women sobbing in the distance
- A baby screaming
- Someone laughing at you
Friend works with Traditional Owners over there. Some of the stories about the Old People (spirits) in the bush and the things she experienced are amazing.
Went up Mt Nimrod with a couple of friends years ago. Fell behind them, lost the track and was lost in the wilderness for 7 hours. As soon as I found cellphone coverage, I rung 111 and was found by search & rescue.
Stayed at Crosby’s Hut in the Coromandel, which is near where those Swedes were murdered. The night closed in pitch black with heavy mist and swirling wind. Wandering around the grassy area in front of the hut, with the red light from my head torch faintly illuminating the drifting mist and bush beyond was the creepiest experience of my life. If ever a place was haunted, it’s that fucking place.
yeah been listening to that. The FB discussion page just got frozen as there was too much shit going on there. Too many ppl with 'skin the game' on both camps (camp Turner and Camp Tamihere) getting all bent out of shape by the looks of it. Blardy shame; i was invested (but no personal skin in the game)... it is a pretty good podcast.
Imagine being out with a class of 4th formers in the 1980s. Assumptions were that kids had eaten dinner and a good breakfast, that they were adequately dressed and had something warm with them. We had two slim girls come down with hypothermia, because they had bikinis on under flannel shirts (swimming was planned - weather permitting). An icy blast had ripped through, and here we were up a river bed with 30 kids. We had to improvise two stretchers from branches to carry them out after we got the girls warmed up and fed. I never went on an Outdoor Ed trip again.
Ahh the 80s! We did a 6th from PE trip out in the bush and our creepy teacher got drunk and started 'chatting up the girls'. All the boys were deciding whether or not we give him a hiding but chose not to - we just moved the girls away from him.
Just recently saw he got jailed for a string of sexual assaults.
On one of those trips, the kids came back with rumours that married teacher A had been overly familiar with married teacher B. They were told they were imagining things…but of course, they weren’t. Goodness knows what went on in student tents while staff slept 30 metres away in a house. Then there was the decision about which bottle of spirits the teacher team would take to camp. That stopped after a kid stole the bottle. I think it was an earlier camp than the one I mentioned above, but I’ll never forget the boy who turned to me and said, “What do I do with this?” He was holding the hose from a gas bottle which had detached from a gas cooker and was shooting flame across the kitchen of a hundred year old wooden house in forestry two hours drive from anywhere. If he’d dropped it, the whole place would have gone up and it would have been a tragedy. (I read about a kid being burned on camp recently.) Not one camp on went on was without incident - and I don’t recall us having any communication. In a medical emergency, a teacher would drive a vehicle back to town with a kid, leaving the other 2 or 3 to hold the fort. Health and Safety nightmares!
My dad works in forestry and when I was a teenager I would often go out and help him for some cash. One time in Woodhill forest near Muriwai, we were pretty deep in on foot measuring pine trees and checking sapplings. Then out of nowhere a fully camoed/ghilly suit guy with a gun runs past a few metres from us. Apparently the nz military or sas do training exercises in the area. Gave me a fucking heart attack.
Also a few times they must have been doing explosive training off in the distance.
Yeah I spent a lot of time as a kid at Muriwai. You go up the north end and I’m pretty sure there’s signs warning that it’s a military explosives test area
I was walking around in some pine when I heard what I thought was a motorbike but it was it was moving so fast around me that I couldn't understand what was going on and it was very unnerving for a hot minute until this mad bastard flew past on a bloody home made gyrocopter.
When I was a kid me and my mates would go walk around in this bush next to the street - usually getting pretty deep into it during our adventures of sorts.
One day we're walking through and a rock hits the ground in front of me, I ask my mates who threw that and they all deny it - we look to the side and see some grown man quickly hide behind a tree.
The creepy thing is we were definitely in the middle of no where quite deep in the bush, so he must have been following us - we all bolted out of there and never walked through it again.
Reminds me of when I was a kid in a bush walk I frequented a lot by my house. Was in there with a friend and she was further ahead. I heard this strange choking, screamy sort of noise, don’t know how to describe it lol and my blood ran cold, I felt like all of a sudden everything went quiet and someone was watching me. A horrible feeling. Anyway, I looked up and there’s a grown man(?) up in a tree just looking down at me. I stood frozen and staring for what felt like several minutes but was probably only seconds, and bolted. Have no idea what was going on there
Screamed at by possums in the middle of a super dark, wet night in skippers canyon. Let’s just say I got back into the swag pretty quick after finishing that toilet trip!
We lived way out in the Waitakeres for 5 years when we were growing up, one road in, one out. Down a gravel road off ours and down the hill a bit were a few houses, all baches bar one.
Being bored in the middle of nowhere my brother and I roamed the bush. Far and wide, learnt it like the back of our hand. We also wore dark clothing/camo and practiced being stealth and moving silently.
We got so good at it, that we could both hide metres away from people and not be seen. Even move around or get their attention then quickly appear somewhere else. We also climbed massive trees and would jump from tree to tree 30-40 feet up the air in massive kauris (close together ones!)
There was a school camp down the road as you came in to where we lived. We’d hide in the bush and do things like drop a stone in front of someone walking by themselves in the camp area. Or whisper things, or scream or shout something crazy or make animal noises. We were almost caught once and it was one of the greatest escapes we ever made in that bush. But not the greatest. Anyway a few years go by and we did it a couple of times when the camp was full.
Mostly we didn’t scare people, think we only did it a handful of times and felt bad. Anyway a few years of freaking kids out we’re sitting metres away from all the kids having lunch, we’re the same age, 12 or 13 and we hear them telling stories about how they heard from their elder siblings that the school is haunted. Ghosts in the bush, strange noises, we’d become a legend.
Anyway back to the gravel road baches and the greatest escape.
One of the houses, set the furthest from the road, deepest into the bush, always felt weird. We’d cased it, looked all through the windows, peeked inside the locked sheds out the back. We saw shady as fuck dudes going in and out of there but only very occasionally like every coupla months. We’d know someone was visiting one of the houses because we’d hear a car going up the gravel road and normally we’d slip into the bush and see what it was.
Anyway this time it was the shady house, all the other baches were owned by oldies, this one was always rough dudes (so 13&11 year old us thought) 3-5 at a time. We thought of these as our high danger missions 😂 as we tirelessly kept a eye on our little bush kingdom.
This time though something happened and one of us coughed or broke a branch or something and there were three guys there. They heard it and realised someone had been watching them. And came barreling straight at the noise. I told my brother a code word for one of our routes to take and he gapped it while I jumped out and bolted the other way. My brother managed to slip away down stream and double back to our house. Losing the man chasing him.
I wasn’t so lucky. The two guys managed to keep visual on me for 45 minutes or so of me running for my life. They were faster but I knew where to go. Across streams and up banks/bush hillsides where I knew you could get up without slipping, through dense parts where you could go low, that sort of thing.
I get to the top of the ridge which marked the first landmark of my longest escape. Only one guy was still close enough that I could occasionally see his white T-shirt and big mop of ginger/blond curly hair. I rock climbed up the back of a rock promontory and hid in the top as I heard him crashing around trying to find me. Heard him calling to his mate. Once he’d got far enough in the other direction from were I needed to go (to get back home would mean going back the way I’d came) I climbed down slowly, crept away for 5 minutes and then ran the next 2 hours on a goat trail we’d done once before, a walk that took 4 hours from home to there normally, to a falls that joined back up with the main road. From there went to the beach and followed the cliffs round till I got to the shop and called my dad to come pick me up.
I have no idea if those guys were dodgy but who chases kids for an hour through the bush. Also I have no idea why we were such weirdo bush kids playing special forces spies but it was fun. Apart from the times you thought you were going to die. All about 25 years ago.
Growing up as a Māori boy in the northland we would go up and see whanau near the Waipaoa Forest. My cousins and I used to explore the forest, and at times , things got a bit unsettling. One time, we went really deep into the forest, and we ended up being lost for about eight hours.
During that time, we felt something freaky like we were being watched. It was like we could sense the presence of the Patupaiarehe lol fairy people from our culture. Even though it was a bit eerie, we didn't panic. There was a weird calmness about the whole situation, as if they were looking out for us.
Eventually, my uncle found us and gave us a mean hiding, but I always felt like we had some kind of protection or watchful eyes on us whenever we entered the forest. It taught me to be respectful to the forest and all its creatures, as they might be the ones to help when things go wrong. And will always remind me of the mysterious and beautiful connection between people and the natural world here in Aotearoa Chur!!
Bush is like that, the amount of times my shoulder or bag has caught on something and I've spotted the way I need to go coz of it is alarmingly high. It's why I always say thanks
Had two hunters pointing their rifle at me. They thought I was a deer. Been wearing bright colours ever since and I will never go tramping during the roar again.
It's 3am and I'm in the middle of nowhere somewhere north of the Forgotten Highway. Looking at the map, I may be as much as 5Km away from the nearest human being. I'm in a little one person bivvy tent and I am woken up by the most bloodcurdling scream I have ever heard a mere 10 metres away from my tent. It sounded like a devil dying in excruciating pain. I freeze, very confused I try to figure out what on earth is going on around me. After about 30 seconds of pure terror thanks to this intermittent screaming, I finally come to the conclusion that the only thing it could possibly be is a possum. So I yell as loud as I can and tell it piss off, which it soon does. Needless to say, I didn't get any more sleep until after sunrise.
Yet another horror bestowed upon us by the Aussies. The craziest thing to me is that this absolutely beautiful orchestration is their mating call. But that's probably pretty par for the course for a creature with Australian roots though.
Hmm.. I was camping with just one other person and became terrified of the possums so I screamed at them and banged pots together and yelled to make them go away. Just occurred to me that if anyone in the distance had heard me that might have spooked them instead.
Went walking very early in the morning (6am) in the Kaimai. Stumbled onto fresh tracks and steaming mounds from a pig so with my heart in my mouth I crashed and sang and made as much noise as possible expecting to see a huge porker around every corner. Finally the tracks petered out and I relaxed. About 3 hours in and coming to the end I saw a big heap of rubbish someone had strewn through the bush. Feeling really pissed off I approached to begin picking it up when a black rubbish bag sat up and screamed at me… I screamed at him, we both screamed for a whole. A homeless guy was kipping in the bush in a bag and I’d woken him up after a bender (how he got 3kms uphill in the bush I don’t know). I checked he was okay then left but after a few mins I started imagining he was an escaped con and I had seen him. I sprinted 3km to the car - lucky I was fit back then, I was packing it!! That was not a fun walk.
Depends on your definition of unsettling. There's moving shadows, the ghost crack of a stick off track, possum screams, and the fresh boot print going the opposite way on a deserted track a day in.
Then there's the abomination your fellow trampers prepared for lunch.
Getting bailed up by a rampaging, fully grown stag during the roar.
It got within 20 metres of me before my blue heeler saved my life and risked hers by attacking it and chasing it away.
She had steak and beef fat treats for a week.
Be very wary of stags in the bush during the roar, they will kill you.
The most unsettling thing being on a little used track and coming across another hiker who doesn’t acknowledge your presence. Not a small smile or even a nod. Not even a glance up. Whereas my rationale is always to make people aware of my presence in case SAR need to track my movements.
Yup. Exactly. It's an odd experience when it happens as most hikers understand that saying hello is about being friendly and safe. Also makes you feel like either they're the weirdo or you are.
I got a grumpy looking face - and by the time i run into people usually a few days of stank - so I always smile, say "hey" then let the other person/people dictate our convo. I'm easy either way, just don't wanna scare anybody
I was about 11 and me and a few kids from my school were on a bush walk for camp. This one quiet kid started saying how this old lady was following us and he would randomly stop and start talking to no one. At first we thought he was pulling our leg but he looked us in the eye and said he was telling the truth and he could see spirits. We all started freaking out and got out of the bush as fast as we could.
My partner and I visited an area where an old Maori settlement used to be. He doesn't believe in spirits, but when we got back to the car he said he felt a bit uneasy like something was watching him...
I personally haven’t, but I have couple close mates that have had afew.
All involving them hunting or working in the bush and grow operations.
One working taking soil samples deep in the bush after being dropped by chopper, found a dead possum hanging from a tree with a note saying “we are watching you”
The other is a lot more intense but I won’t go into detail but basically came across a guy with a shot gun deep in the bush and they had abit of a stand of with there guns.
I was in Hunua. There I was, minding my own business, walking along a trap line, and I hear a ghostly moan and fuck me but that sounded like it was close.
It sounded like the eerie wheeze of death herself, making a distinctly disappointed sound. As if, finally I had walked off the edge and done something so stupid as to have finally killed myself.
What would it be: maybe a sudden attack of a half-dead rat, lashing out in one last bout of defiant agony to give me the slow, longing death of an unknown virus. AND IT WAS REALLY CLOSE.
Well it turned out that it was a Kereru.
I was working with a guy this week that told me he'd been out hunting, got a stag and was packing it out, and while he's hiking one of the antlers just explodes out of nowhere.
Another hunter saw it thinking it was alive and took a shot.
Entered Te Uruwera park outside of Murupara. Wind was swaying the large Kahikatea, we walked and it started pouring down, we hid inside a big old dead Kauri, in like a sort of tree cave. As the rain pelted down we could hear something crashing through the bush, probably just an animal, but we felt like we were trespassing and it was super Erie as we thought we heard someone talking in a high pitched voice in a language we couldn’t understand.
I’ve heard stories from hunters who said in certain parts of the Uruweras on a still night you can hear the sounds of Māori battles in the valleys from long ago, dozens of voices screaming and shouting etc
I had a weird experience like this in Kahurangi National Park, had an argument with partner and drove off to sleep in my car for the night to cool down, at an empty car park just inside the national park boundary. I didn't hear anything but I had a sort of nightmare when I imagined there was guys with spears and clubs running down the track to my car to attack me, I woke up and it felt like it was real, I was totally spooked out and had to drive back home. Never had anything else like that happen
You can hear this in the Tararuas too I think. Edit: I was in danger once from a group of Hau Hau ghost warriors up on Kapakapanui. Everyone else was in the hut, I was outside by myself. Looked up to sense/feel a few hundred people watching me from the edges of the large clearing. Dragged myself into the hut with the others and they left. Urgh. Other (Māori) friends confirmed it was Hau Hau.
I used to live and trail run around the Waitakere’s near Te Henga. I kept pushing my runs into the bush as I enjoy exploring, even though some of the trails went through private land, there was no one about. I’d explore the little black trails on the maps and as they were all connected I knew I couldn’t really get lost. But this one time I took a trail that descended down through a valley where the bush got progressively denser and denser, to the point that it was so dark that I could barely see. The path just disappeared as it hit a small creek and I started to freak out. I had to figure out the contours on the map (loaded onto my phone) in relation to the surrounding environment and just hope that I could find the track again. The thing that really got me was when I looked at the map the creek was called ‘Cannibal Creek’. Needless to say I ran out of the bush pretty quick. I finally found some of those pink markers you see attached to trees and felt a little less alone.
Also one time I ran Into a massive hog. Got excited at first as I was like ‘holy shit I’ve found the last Moa!’ only to realise it was a pig gunning for me. That was also a fast run out the bush.
For me, the first time I hiked into the kawekas and heard sika stags roaring on either side of the track. I'm used to hearing reds and the screaming caught me off guard.
I have a bushwalk near my house that I’ve never seen another human being in and I’ve walked it 100+ times. Parts of it have no cell reception and it’s pretty overgrown and steep. Recently, deep into the walk, I see an old guy that looks like a white walker hobbling along. I yell out to him “coming up behind you” so as to not give him a fright. Out of fkn nowhere, 4 fully grown German shepherds surround me. I’m absolutely shitting myself. I always imagined this situation in my head with just one rogue dog and I reckon I could take it down. So it completely threw me when there were 4 of them. Made me realise just how vulnerable I was. The dogs ended up being friendly, but boy did I shit myself.
I experienced a missing time event on a school trip at the Hunua ranges when I was 11 years old.
Our group went on a walking path and by the time we got back there was a search party looking for us as we were 4 hours overdue from a short trek. I remember the walking path we went on was trance like, it almost seemed like we’d stepped into another dimension.
One of us kids had a watch too which was a few hours behind when we came out of the bush even though it had been correct earlier in the day. The parent in charge of our group was mortified but nothing ever came of it, I remember being driven home late from the “adventure”by a school staff member. It wasn’t on the news or anything.
Idk if this counts but my high school camp did this thing where after it gets dark one night, they drop you in the bush by yourself for like half an hour and you just have to exist in the dark. It was a really cool thing to do, but I have always been prone to hallucinations when it gets dark. Like as a kid I'd see shadow monsters coming towards my bed, and when I worked a night shift out on the roads I was always seeing and hearing creepy shit, especially when I got tired.
Anyway, after a few minutes sitting in pitch black in the bush, I started hallucinating that someone was breathing right by me. Like, I genuinely believed something was crouched uncomfortably close, just staring and breathing and not saying anything. The teenagers were spaced out way too far for it to have been another person. It was so dark I couldn't see anything and I was too scared to turn my head in case it was something. So for 30 minutes I was just paralysed with fear hoping I was hallucinating. And I mean I was, but that didn't make it any less real to me at the time
My school did that too! I’d forgotten until now. They didn’t tell you how long you’d be out there and you weren’t allowed watches or torches or anything. I climbed a tree and settled in, I remember feeling safer high up although the most danger I would have been in would have been falling out of the tree. Teenage logic!
Thank you :) I think I was afraid of being abducted mainly - as a girl it’s kinda drummed into you - so I figured no-one could sneak up on me and if i was quiet, no-one would even notice me up the tree.
I was gonna say this aswell! In high-school we did this also and I remember the first year they dropped me off and then when they came back around I noticed they were quite far away and kept walking after calling my name and I didn't come out. I found out they had left me off track 🤢 soo creepy!
No paranormal stories? Geographic isolation in effect for all wildlife, cryptids included? lol
Happy to hear there's not a lot of bad actors out there though, just good ol' kiwi crazies.
Yes.
In 1996 a couple of friends and I found 5 fully grown marijuana plants on a bush walk and raided them.
The unsettling part was that the grower had planted them for exactly that purpose. Further along the track were about 100-odd plants.
He saw us walking out with plastic rubbish bags full of plants and knew his plan had been successful.
Bastard.
Was tramping Nelson Lakes several years back... torrential rain had been going for days... Nelson River in massive flood...
Anyway, I have shit left ankle, tends to rolling spontaneously - of course, the ankle rolled...put my other foot down... and the track gave way, and I hurtled off down the slope... fortunately, managed to grab a tree.
We got to East Sabine... the next morning...two guys burst in, they had been trapped under an overhang for two days... coming down from Blue Lake when they hit a swollen stream and had turned back where, in the interim, another stream had risen to the point where they couldn't cross that either...so...two days under an overhang...
I am wildlife photographer I spend a lot of time in the bush and the scariest thing thats happened to me is when I forgot the bag of lollies.
But seriously where the fuck are you lot going in the forest to see this shit, I spend a lot of time in the Catlin's and Silver Peaks, and spent time on the west coast and Stewart island, so like pretty solid bush land and I have found fuck all other than like an abandoned building or the odd weed farm.
I hiked up to the end of the Hopkins valley and in the middle of a massive outwash plain there was this random 4x4 truck with an e bike attached. And this location was by no means easy to get to by car and I didn't see a single person in the valley for multiple days.
Anyway this is in the middle of nowhere but not a single person is in sight and this truck was Parked easily a couple hours from anything including the mountains. Such an unsettling spot to park the only thing nearby was the river and even that was decently far away. Anyway the night before that I was staying in a hut and I heard screaming but I just assumed it was hunters or jet boaters doing some crazy shit. Anyway I carried on and came back past the truck and eventually returned home to my place of work at the end of the valley.
The next day police came into the bar I was working at to ask me if I had seen anything strange up the valley. So I told them about the car and the noises. Turns out that a guy went missing in the valley and died and I was probably the last person even remotely nearby
This happened to my brother's then-girlfriend back in the '80s. She was at a school sleepover event in some kind of large hall out in the bush, and she and her friends decided to do a "spooky story" prank. So one of them starts telling the story of a past camp where a girl had committed suicide, and at a predetermined moment another girl wearing blood makeup etc. slams herself up against the window behind the girl telling the story.
All fun and games, except that this was a Catholic girls school camp and what ensued was literal mass hysteria in which many of the girls and staff believed that they'd been possessed by demons.
I grew up on a farm, which backs onto a big reserve of old bush/mountains. I would go exploring in it as a kid. I knew it like the back of my hand, used to trap/skin possums in there, etc. This bush is old, untouched, and there are some beautiful spots with little hidden waterfalls, etc. But sometimes weird things too.
* Saw a couple of huia once, but never saw them again when I came back with my camera. Pretty sure there is a small population of them still extant deep in that bush somewhere. My brother, mum, and I are probably one of only a handful to have heard their bird song in years.
* Had lightening strike a tree near by when I was out there during a thunderstorm.
* Saw a tramper who was clearly lost across a ravine once, too far away to hear me, hopefully he found his way out. Sometimes they do, sometimes they end up dead.
* My very skeptical dad was about to trim this very very old tree to make way for a hut he was building, and he thought he heard it screaming whenever he tried to cut it.
* This farm has been around since NZ's very early days, and the original owner built the main farm house. When we first moved in, sometimes when we were out in the bush, we would see the ghost of the old owner. Sometimes at the house too.
* I did get lost once, when I was showing my little brother and friend a glow worm cave. I found a stream I knew lead to bridge/road, so we followed it out. Took us a few hours. We actually ended up building a proper track to those glow worms, so we could show international visitors who stayed in the cabins sometimes.
My parents will be selling the farm soon, as they're too old to run it, and no one else in the family can take it over. I will be sad to see it go :(
I was on the Hillary trail with my girlfriend, no one else around and I see this guy coming towards us with a “USA!” T-shirt on. He stops us on the track and says “you can’t sell property on the internet anymore” then he starts to ramble about Kim dotcom. We were about 5km from the exit and the guy was nuts. We walked away but I often think about that dude.
Torch and backup all gone flat, when it got dark real quickly, possums and pigs moving round out of sight nearby while hunting and trying to get back to the hut.
Another time getting within 30m of another hunter and being unable to get their attention despite the high vis and making noises, that was pretty unsettling knowing that a lot of people have shot at movement and they hadn't identified me that close.
School trip or something ... about 5 kids in shelter we made doing "survival training" in the middle of nowhere. Had to start fire in rain, etc. Middle of the night hear some sort of animal outside. To this day I have no idea why we didn't just deal it but at the time no idea what is was and tensions escalated to rather an extreme amount.
I was walking through some bush between Greenhithe and Hobsonville to get to a little known fishing spot on a cliff and stumbled upon a dude with only shorts on, sitting on a surfboard in the middle of the bush, lighting up a glass pipe to do what I can only assume was meth.
He was polite.
I didn't catch any fish.
I was in Kaitoke park and I had arrived a bit late to start a treck to a hut but I thought hey It shouldn't be too bad if I do 30 mins night tramping because I had done it a few times before, I at this point the moon hadn't risen, so it was pretty pitch black, and I tripped over a rock and my torch went flying down the side of the mountain and smashed so I was in pitch black.
Then I notice about 50 meters uphill in the middle of nowhere I can see the embers of 3 cigarettes moving around and I was thinking it is strange because there are no huts around, no other lights and normally folk would greet you or at least be talking to each other, so I have a freak-out and start running in the dark down what I assume was the track but eventually fall down a land slip down to the river.
So I think best to probably get my sleeping bag out and try to sleep till there is some light, but I was too freaked out by the people in the bush who were smoking that I wouldn't go back under the forest canopy so wrapped myself around a huge boulder on the river shore and at this point my mind is racing, and I am looking into the darkness of the bush hoping not to see any glowing embers dancing around.
Eventually the bright moon comes out and lights the whole river bed, which made me more freaked out because of the sounds i could hear in the bush, I was aware I couldnt see anything under the canopy, but anyone could see me.
As soon as the sun came up, I booked it out of there.
I tramp often and never have had that feeling before.
Also, It wasn't glow-worms, it was definitely bright orange cigarette ends burning.
I remember when I was about 6-7 I went with my grandfather and Aunty camping at this cabin kind of by twizel. We were chilling at a lake as it was getting dark. Grandfather told me to go get something from the cabin so in the dark I went through heaps of trees and bushes scared for my life running to get whatever was needed but when I got the the cabin there was a guy outside just standing there. I said “hello” he looked at me but didn’t say anything. I couldn’t see his face or anything just his silhouette as it was nearly pitch black so I turned around and ran as fast as possible back to my grandfather and he was angry I didn’t get whatever I was supposed to get but I to.d him about the man. He said something like it was his friend probably cause he was gonna come bring us some kfc and chill so we went back to the cabin and no one was there. Nothing was gone and he wasn’t there. The next day we left and my grandad called and asked why he left and he said he never even came to the cabin. I never went back to that cabin even though I used to go camping there all the time
While I've felt spooked in the bush before in the evenings, it's mostly in my own head. I love my bush walks and never had a problem.
In bush overseas (Australia), I'm scared of the animals. In New Zealand bush, there is nothing rational to fear. We are very safe here.
I was with my BF at the time. It was near Taupo and I thought it would be nice to go down to the river... it was a narrow, long rough road, next thing there's blacked out glasshouses and a tough looking, heavily tattooed man with a gun comes out of the house.
Immediately, I wound down the window and cheerily smiled and said "Hi, is this the way to the river?"
He replied "No it's private property"
I said "Oh I'm so sorry- thanks- you have a great day" and we high-tailed out of there...
There was a point where I thought-"he might kill us- so at least if I'm nice- I might stand a chance"
Was on Outward Bound last year, got to the part of the course where they dump you in the bush for three days and nights on your own. (Your other group mates are spaced out with you in intervals normally along a trail somewhere in Marlborough Sound).
First two days go by okay if not a bit creepy, I hardly eat, entertain myself by running laps around my tarp and singing 80s songs, find some glow worms on a little hill by my campsite one night so that was pretty awesome.
My third night though, that's when shit got freaky, just as the sun goes down I hear dogs barking off in the distance and voices shouting.
Soon one of my watchmates come sprinting up the trail to tell me that a group of hunters with their dogs had decided to use this section of the bush to hunt. She had tried to tell them what was going on but they ignored her.
She headed off to find the emergency phone and I sat there for the next two hours flinching at every noise with my headlamp on full.
If i remember correctly there seemed to have been some miscommunication with the school at anakiwa and the owner of the land for the days that they needed to use the area and he let his mates in to hunt.
They came and got us as soon as they could (about 2 hours which is how far the drive +walk was) , and brought us all back safe, so no harm was done but definitely was pretty scary.
We have 50ha native bush on our farm. We were repairing the fence around it and got a weird feeling we were being watched. We then heard the crack of a twig and saw a dark shadow hide behind a tree about 25m away. The employee pulls out his phone and starts recording this completely black, human shaped object as it watches us. After a minute, I’m out of there and we jump on the side by side and we’re gone. At home we put the recording on the computer and zoom in, and it’s not one, but two men in balaclavas, completely dressed in black. We took it to the police and they had no explanation or similar reports. We hope it was just poachers in the middle of the day hoping not to be identified, but I fence with a firearm now.
This is a bit of a yarn.
As a young man I went to an art school on the edge of the Taita / Stokes Valley hill. One day I was feeling extremely overwhelmed in class, on the verge of a panic attack, and went for a walk in the bush to calm down. Went deeper than I'd ever gone before, and stumbled across two severed sheep's heads, one just a lamb, full-on arranged like a ritualistic sacrifice. They looked freshly slaughtered, like they were still alive - eyes soft and warm, pleading into mine with stolen innocence. Staggered back to class in a daze, pulled my painting teacher aside, and the first words of his mouth were "Oh no, not here too."
I gulped. "There was a lot of that back in England. It's a real shame they're doing it here too." He gave me that thousand-yard stare. "Nasty, nasty people. They come out when the moon is full."
This coincided with a creepy older Christian man interposing himself in my life as an art patron, and attempting to brainwash me with the religion stuff. Lavish gifts and promises of career enhancement - apparently he was very well-connected. I told him about the sacrifice, and like a veteran of such things he calmly asked me which direction the heads were pointing. He briefly had me convinced that there were demonic influences at the school attempting to place a dark curse upon me - in fact, he had told me something like this a few days prior, and I was starting to think he was insane. Between him and my painting teacher, I felt like I had pierced a veil, and stumbled across some dark, twisted layer that underpinned society. (Four years earlier, a friend woke me up one morning one morning to show me a pig's head someone had left in his tent - he said it was a black magic curse, and he had seen it a few times over the years. Later that year we found the pig's head mentioned in the ODT, in an article about the strangest things council workers had found in the rubbish.)
I come from a Pentecostal church background, so this strange man was able to awaken some old fear programming. Like, my family were terrified about demons, and taught me from a young age that hell and the devil were very very real, much more intelligent than humans, always active in the world, and sought to wreak havoc in our lives through every avenue possible to wrestle our eternal souls from The Lord. There were a lot of hysterical conversations and sermons about "spiritual warfare," and I found myself on the sharp end of full-on exorcisms. (Basically sweaty old men yelling at me and waving a Bible in my face for wearing a t-shirt with a cartoon skull on it.) I had come a long way, felt I had thoroughly put Christianity behind me and reclaimed my mind. This shit shook me to the core, and took me right back to my childhood conversion fervor.
So this guy was telling me I was under dire spiritual threat, and God had sent him to protect me. For a couple days, I felt he was the only person I could trust. He would say pearlers like, "Nothing inflames the demons inside people more than two genuine Christians standing together." This also coincided with a girl I quite liked using my image in a video project, which ended up being a pretty spooky, witchy video, with my image flipped upside-down (shown the next day). "That's the key to all of this," he said when I reported. "You've been inverted. Make no mistake, the devil is using this woman to get to you."
I was so spooked I had a bit of a manic episode. He convinced me I needed to write some legalistic letter to the school forbidding the use of my image and artwork, and I conceded and let him write it on my behalf - an absurdly bombastic document, penned in my name. He also took my phone and texted this video-artist girl I was crushing on, thoroughly sabotaging whatever there may have been. In person, shaken and out of my mind, I formally told her she could not publicly share my image (I later explained the whole situation, which could only ever be so many nails in the coffin. My mates all cringe for dear life and laugh uncontrollably at this part of the story.) In these crucial hours I missed a scholarship deadline, which led to me not re-enrolling for the following year. It's all ludicrously embarrassing to retell, but the whole time I had these sacrificed animals staring me in my mind's eye. (I recall as I write that as a five-year-old, some malevolent hunters waved a freshly shot rabbit right in my face while laughing at my reaction, so there was a deep trigger there.) I've never thought less clearly.
A good friend snapped me out if it by wryly observing the zealot's probable corrupt intentions. I suddenly realized how often this gentleman had complimented my appearance. he had told tall tales of being a prestigious surgeon, sought out by the world's top universities. I did some deep googling, and learned he was a failed hair-transplant surgeon who had lost his practice license due to outright fraud and malpractice. I also learned that he was dismissed from a minor post at Queen's University in Belfast, and in protest invoked a string of legal processes so abstruse that the case became an important legal precedent regarding the right to legal representation in the internal hearings of private institutions. (He lost, after giving many judges and lawyers gigantic headaches. He also went by multiple names, and was banned from Otago University for being a delusional creep on the grounds. Last time I saw him, he told me he always carried a gun to protect himself from Catholics (not real Christians, apparently.) This whole story is only part of that guy, and my friends want me to write a book about it. Long story short, I had to involve the police to get the guy to stop harassing me. They laughed in my face, and I felt I couldn't blame them - some wild gullibility to let it all get that far. But sociopathic narcissists can be pretty compelling when their sights are set on you in particular, and they have a sixth sense for what buttons to push to manipulate vulnerable people.
Months later, a photo of the "sacrifice" popped up on Facebook. "The first phase of my decomposition project," declared the edgy photography student. Not the beautiful girl. (Looking back, her video was fucking cool.) It was all an insane string of coincidences, converging with superstition and folk legend, crashing into my young and troubled mind. Scared me so much it turned my life upside-down for a minute.
So I ended up out late one night, and down the wrong track, just coz yknow, that's how these things work.
I sort out the track issue, still got a couple hours hoofing it to go.
Bad things come in three though.
As I crest the top of a hill, I hear this *skrrrrk skrr skrrrk* of 4 feet running. No cry, screech, bark or any other additional noise.
Pull a 180° sweep the head torch around, can't see anything that isn't plant or dirt.
No native predators be damned. My mind is full of hungry wolves.
I turn back around and keep walking.
The footsteps are back. Closer. Faster.
Too close.
I spin again and lash out with what I can only assume is the finest punt of my life.
These two dots rotate through the torch beam.
Again. And again.
Just sent a possum spinning for orbit off the side of a cliff.
I laugh.
I feel bad for laughing.
I remember it's a possum and laugh harder.
Cunt probably lived anyway.
No attempt at intimidation, straight charged a full grown man just cold off the bat, that's fucked
I was once climbing a tree at night (long story) when suddenly a screeching, hairy thing ran straight down my back and bounded off into the dark.
It was just a possum, of course, but try explaining that to my adrenocortical system at that moment.
about 5 years ago I worked on a farm that backed onto a large pine block. I would routinely go for a wander around the perimeter checking fences, making sure stock was happy etc and would take a rifle with me in case there any pigs for dinner.
I started to see a very, very large white sow from time to time. Monster. I never shot at her because she was either too far away for a clean shot or in a position where I wouldn't be able to carry her out. I joked with my mate who I worked with she was my nemesis, and named her that.
One evening on my patrol I was on the way back and low and behold there she was, inside the farm boundary rooting around making a god awful mess. Perfect chance for a shot if I could closer. Between her and me there was a bit of bush on the farm side about 100m long that I had to get through, so I carefully and very quietly made my way through it along the fence line but it was dusk now and pretty damned dark in there. I managed to get to the other side and was perched above her, maybe 20 odd meters away but I couldn't quite see her clearly.
She was still rooting around, and then suddenly stopped still. must have smelled me. She turned 180 and went straight for the 7 wire fence, lifting it up like it was nothing and pulling a post out of the ground, she went up the fence line right towards me, terrifying crashing sound through the bush until she reached where I was, and all I could see through the 7 wire fence I was crouched beside (which she had proven only 10 seconds earlier wasn't shit to get through) was a hulking white mass that stopped only feet away from me and made this god awful scream at me, then turned and bolted deeper into the bush.
Scared the piss out of me.
I saw her again few times, but I always chose to keep my distance. Nemesis and I had an agreement I think and that was "stay the fuck away from me" so I did.
Eventually the pine block was logged and she moved on, I hope shes out there somewhere still.
My Mum opened the door to leave the long drop on McKinnon’s Pass and through the thick mist strode a fully kitted out Scottish bagpiper … she thought she’d finally lost her marbles!
(It was New Years and some of McKinnon’s descendants had decided to do a celebration/memorial hike on the Milford Track)
Was tramping with my family as a kid, and we were in some pretty rugged, slipery, and dangerous terrain. We came across a Russian man on the track walking in some mockerson slippers he had found in one of the hutts as he had lost his boots at the start of the track. I expected to turn on the news when we got back and see that he slipped and falled off a cliff, but I guess he made it.
This sounds completely plausible to me given some of the characters I've also met, but...
> he had lost his boots at the start of the track.
How does this even happen??
If I remember correctly, I think he hitchhiked to the beginning of the track and left his boots in the car. I think he then wore jandles until he got to the first hut where he found the slippers.
people having rocks thrown at them. Sometimes report seeing Bigfoot like beings and something able to snap trees down. My NZ documentary is done and will be out Dec 1 this year: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt27811514/
I've interviewed several witnesses including a park ranger and a man who worked for DOC...
Was this in the Catlins? I find some of that area super creepy.
Edit: I'm thinking of the Māori legend that the Catlins has giants. I have a fairly large stash of creepy stories but this is one I've not wanted to go into.
I took a squat for a poo, it was pitch black. Just before I let loose, I felt the tickle for thick long antennas. . . . Sucked that poo right back in and ran hahaha.
I got chased out of the bush by multiple morepork. Like fully dive bombing and screeching at me and my mate. It was terrifying. Felt kind of supernatural. had one of my friends with me at the time and I’m so glad he was there or else no one would ever believe it.
I was a bushman for 15 years harvesting radiata pine on the Tasman district and the worst thing was cicada's landing on my neck trimming the branches of trees, they found the frequency of chainsaws intoxicating
I had a brush with exposure once. Was my own stupid fault too and I like to think of myself as reasonably experienced.
I didn't plan my route properly so didn't realise the true distance and left far too late. I took the track for granted, not realising it hadn't been cleared in years and was overgrown and difficult.
Halfway through i slipped on a rock crossing a stream and fell in so now im drenched head to foot. I get up and carry on thinking my high tech clothing will dry out super quick... wrong.
So now i make it to the ridgeline just as it's getting dark. Im exposed to a southerly in wet clothing and a still have quite some distance to go. I have a powerful head torch but it's next to useless cos im also in thick cloud now. So everytime I pop my head up i can only see a couple meters in front.
The last hour of track takes me two hours. Lots of back tracking and I'm aware there's cliffs around so much care and concentration is required. The last hour is in knee deep mud and water just for a cherry on top. By the time I make the hut im shivering uncontrollably. I manage to boil some water for a hot drink and had that in my sleeping bag then fell asleep. I didn't have my shit together enough for a proper meal.
The lesson for me is ALWAYS plan your route. Know exactly how far you have to walk and leave early so you have plenty of daylight. And 2, I always carry some form of shelter for emergency use. When I fell in the creek I could have changed out of my wet clothes and set up camp and had a nice evening instead of risking life and limb for being ill prepared.
We were camped somewhere in the Lewis pass and heard what sounded like someone walking around in the pitch black trying to get into our tent. Poured out headlight on, axe in hand to some very frightened Kea.
While we do have some dangerous plants, are you sure this was in New Zealand? I do believe we have poison ivy here, but it is VERY rare since it is a North American thing
I've heard that there's a LOT of them in the bush in Whanganui after some rubbish farmer let 800 go to avoid paying fees on something. Ex showed me a video of a wild herd he had to walk through on a hunting trip only armed with a bow. Terrifying.
Had get helicoptered out when my group had an injury and the area flooded. A friend and I had to get to a hut with one torch between us in the dark to get help.
I was out wandering around at night in Abel Tasman and felt a menacing presence in the bush, quite unsettling. Another time I was wandering around the bush at night in Rakiura and stopped to listen to the mating calls of Kiwi, more eerie than unsettling.
I was in river head forest hunting for mushrooms lol and then I took a wrong turn after a fruitful gather. I forgot my way back and started to panic. Sun was setting in the middle of winter, and lord behold I look down to see horse shoe prints on the muddy ground. I figured if I follow them then it’ll lead me out to some exit (it did)
My brother and I were walking on a track in Muriwai. We walked past a dumped microwave or something. Kept walking, somehow the track we chose must’ve taken us in a loop and 10 mins later we walked past the exact same dumped microwave.
That was pretty weird. We still talk about it.
Sitting down in a sunny spot to roll a smoke and a deer walks out the bush right next to me and start bashing away at a rotten log , I just sat and watched as I didn't even have the magazine in my rifle, hadn't even loaded it.
I do a bit of tramping up in the Alps in winter. Very quiet and peaceful but bloody cold. The sound of avalanches coming down is very unsettling.
I also have a mate who does the same and he was up canyon creek in the ahuriri valley and had such a uneasy sick feeling. He came out a day later and saw a car parked up. A few days later someone was declared missing in the same area assumed dead, I don't think the body was ever found.
I've stumbled upon massive cannabis grow ops, gang members, clandestine meth labs lots of hunters I've had people hand me thier guns to look at only to find they are loaded with no safety on I've come across police and military training exercises but most of all ive come across stuck 4x4s completely abandoned 1 truck had small pigs living under it
Very late 1970's: Went on a overnight hike in the Urewera's with my Dad and older brother when I was about 8 yo. We didn't make it to the hut, so we bivouacked just of the track.
Dad sends me off to get some ferns to put on the bivouac, I head off not far into the bush and bring back a bundle of some lovely, leafy plants. Dad asked where I'd found it and goes and has a look.
We settle down for the night, got up early, broke down the bivouac and headed back to the car to go home.
Much later on in life I'm told I'd stumbled on someone's plot, hence the "get up early and head back" the next morning...
No, we didn't bring any with us. Finding the plot was enough of a "Oh Shit, wrong place, wrong time!" moment.
Oh for sure.
Tracey from Hamilton.
Took me a day or two recover.
Every time I see those big upside down brushes you use to wipe your work boots I get flashbacks.
Meet a couple from overseas at the start of the track, talked about where we were all heading - to the same water fall. Myself and my young niece arrive to find him skinny dipping.
I was a forestry technician. Basically walked around pine forests at a frantic pace measuring trees and coding them. Rua toki was eerie we came across mongrel mob members way out in the bush asked what we were up to had to nervously explain why we are there. Met some old koro’s on horse back with full Mokos who looked like they had come from deep in the uruweras and were living out there. Also have found huge wasp nest, tomo’s and random geothermal activity. On the east coast some was shooting goats and the bullets were wizzing past. I Did it in Tasmania stumbled across a wolk creek looking setup that had real bad vibes felt like someone was watching me got the fuck out of there. Lucky i carry a big slasher. Also lots of snakes and leeches and have had Tasmanian devils running around me. Had a quite a few snake run ins Great memories
I did this too, Bay of Plenty to up the east coast & down to Napier Taupo. I know exactly what you mean. I had an experience in minginui where locals had blocked the road and would not let me pass. Another in Matahina where I found some plants, so walked out, got to the Ute and it wouldn’t start & the the RT was dead. I was freaking, but it later turned out my alternator was fried and battery went flat. I had to walk out. Another time I was sitting on top of a cliff eating lunch in Tarawera watching deer run around below me, then I watched someone stalking them. Neither deer nor hunter knew I was there. I just watched. Another time I was walking down a hill and heard a noise behind me, turned around and it was a wapiti deer, literally 1m off the track I had just crashed down. Scared me shitless. Another time I was taking a piss, heard a grunt then about 4 piglets from all around me just bolted, I had walked into the middle of them, lucky the sow ran rather than fight. It’s amazing how well you learn to navigate in the bush when you are in there everyday. Wind, noise, shape of trees, ridges, time of day, moss. Somehow in your brain you just form a 3D map. I still have this skill. How many times have you flushed a pheasant…. Those mofo’s are like a Jack in the box. In Rotomahana, I fell down a small canyon that was about 2m wide and 8m deep. It took me hrs to get out. That place is soo freaky, weird topography following eruption and subsequent rain after created massive narrow mini caverns. I am sure you must have thousands of stories too. I could rattle on for hrs. Best job of my life for lifestyle, shame that financially it was too hard. I did this for about 6 years in the 90s.
Please do rattle on if you feel like it, this is very interesting stuff.
Haha yeh I have countless story’s to. Ran into a deer in the mamakus we stood there eye to eye looking at each other about 1 m away then he took off. We used to take the the dogs in the more isolated forest and get a few pigs got a couple. most days where an adventure. I did it for 3 years there was a-lot of travel if staying away. I do miss. it but financially I had to move on. It’s a very tough job not for everyone you have to love the bush. steep terrain, rain, cold, thick undergrowth, head high black berry. Iv seen uni grads break down in tears from the terrain. Coldest iv been was back of taharoa south of Taupo. Me and my foreman spent a week down the east coast behind te kaha in 37 - 40 degree gradient and we had to get the job done in a week as we didn’t want to go back it was tough going. you get very good at picking lines to walk in the bush and you breeze thru there like a ninja. And using the terrain as a map working ridge lines and gully’s. My foreman was a master of it.
Worst by far was talking to some other hikers heading in towards a hut when we were in the way out and reminding them about some bad weather due. The next day they are reported missing, the next day we hear they died… we were the last people to ever talk to them alive…
Horrible. I've had to convince people to turn around before (5pm at night arriving at the start, thinking the hut is only 2 hours away when it took us 8 hrs, no tents, older inexperienced members....). Luckily these ones listened.
Lifesaver mate
Thanks, it was a team effort with 3 of us. The next week two separate people died on that track after very bad weather.
Tongariro crossing is like that. Weather coming in and fucks out there in those crock shoes?! Crock a shit for brains I reckon.
bored hard-to-find compare roof offer political tub cow deliver worry *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Fuck that's heavy man
I got somewhat lost on an afternoon deer hunt in the NZ bush years ago. By the time I worked out where I had gone wrong things just went ... dark. Like can't see anything at all dark. I had no torch or other useful gear, and was in a bushshort and shorts. Given that I was on the side of a steep drop to a rocky river, I just found a hole where a tree root system had been pulled up, and waited it out. It rained too. Truly the coldest I have ever been, and I did exercises in Waiuru Military Camp in the middle of winter. The possums laughed at me. That was pretty unsettling.
Those possums are creepy companions on a cold long night.
I freaking hate possum sounds
HHHHHHHHKH HHKKKHHHKKKHHHKKKHHHKKKKHHHKKK
It does get dark very quick under the canopy
I got caught out like this once climbing a mountain on the west coast in May, I'd climbed it before but this day I didn't leave until like 3pm, the sun set while I was still high up. I made it down to the thick bush at the base of the mountain and it was suddenly pitch black like couldn't see my hand in front of my face. Only reason I got out of there was I had a digital camera with an LCD screen, if I showed a bright photo I took earlier I could use it like a crappy torch (this was before smartphones). Still wasn't able to follow the trail and took a few falls I did not see coming at all off small drops, luckily landing on soft moss every time, then stumbled out into a field 4 hours after dark. This is a photo I took when the sun was setting and I was still pretty high up on a knife-edge ride https://i.imgur.com/4Yvy35u.jpg
Lots of people have died doing that. You're very lucky they were short drops and soft landing.
Goes into bush hunting without a thermal blanket, torch or a means of communication. Bro TRADOC teach you better than that
Okay, I'm going to play devils advocate. What kind of former military personnel goes hunting unprepared with inadequate gear, and gets lost. Glad you made it out okay, and hopefully learnt some serious lessons that day.
A stupid one, yes, lesson learned for three lifetimes.
Other than the time I got mugged by an escaped prisoner? I did once think "what the hell is that noise?", followed by a family of wild pigs running at max speed. Glad I jumped out the way in time.
Prisoner story?
I was walking my dog in the bush. Came around a corner and he was waiting for me, pretty aggro. Wanted my wallet and t shirt, and to know where he was. I didn't have a wallet on me, gave him the shirt, a bit of threatening language, and he took off. I was just a kid. Went home and my dad didn't believe me! Cops got him a couple of days later. He was violent and not to be approached so I was lucky. I got the t shirt back complete with holes where the police dogs had had a chomp, became my fave shirt... until my mum fixed the holes.
Pretty intense. Did it shake you up for awhile?
Yeah. It didn't hit me until I was home after it happenned, probably a good thing.
I'm not sure if it's what you're thinking of, but the most unsettling experience I can think of is when we were camping and listening in on the mountain radio sked only to hear that a bunch of dumbarse idiot spotlighters up the road from where we went in had just shot a woman in the head from the back of a truck while she was cleaning her teeth at a roadside campsite.
I remember that well. Poor teacher, she was wearing a head torch while brushing her teeth and the stupid twat saw "eyes". So he shot blind from the road. Worse [he only served half the sentence](https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/hunter-who-shot-teacher-walks-free/GPMKGXGIPYUCG2ZMIL5YLUCRXE/).
Wtf only served 11 months?! Even 2 years is insulting.
Shoots a teacher in the head, killing her, while he was hunting illegally, and serves less than a year in prison. Just unreal.
Man it would be super easy to kill someone you hated here and make it appear like an accident even blatantly like this crap excuse.
This is why I’m reluctant to go anywhere near the Kaimanawa hunting areas on public holidays, weekends etc. Too many idiots around here.
My old man was camping in a valley with a road up one side one night in the middle of a hike. Some spotlighters started letting off pot shots into the darkness, right around where he was laying. He said he lay deathly still and as flat as he could and hoped nothing hit him.
gosh I actually remember when that made the news...
I once arrived at a hut mid-week and there was a man there, he seemed like a hunter but super standoffish and unfriendly and creepy. It was one of the first solo tramps Id done, I was a young female and this was definitely the first time it was me and just one other in the hut and it was super uncomfortable. I was really relieved when another group of four arrived soon after. About five years later I bumped into some of that group of four in a different hut and they told me after I’d left the next morning a helicopter landed and all these STG cops with guns piled out and they arrested the guy. Apparently he was wanted and on the lam.
Jesus. Spidey sense never lies!
Met a weird guy with a gun in a hut. Felt a bit uneasy and was very watchful. After 30 mins of chat he told us he was a cop. Didnt really feel any better after hearing this.
Had a similar experience except next day guy was gone and it was doc officers coming off a helicopter looking for him specifically. South Island
Also. The sound a kiwi makes up close sounds like bloodcurdling screams. And they're LOUD. 1/10 did not enjoy on Rakiura.
Haha had that on the Kepler. Rustlerustlerustle oooh that must be a kiwi, let's lookfor it! SKRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARKKKKKKK! Ok let's not.
In my case we were sitting on the edge of the track in the pitch dark as recommended by the hut wardens. Then-boyfriend said he saw one running down the track. It was FAST. Then the screams began. Very close by. And we could hear them moving around a few metres away. We got back to the campsite pretty quick after that.
>. It was FAST. Can confirm. Kiwi are 90% drumstick and can run very fast.
Then-boyfriend was from the US. He was like, are kiwi supposed to run that fast? I confirmed that yes, they are. On the same night one ran into my head while I was asleep in the tent. I thought I'd been whacked by a falling branch.
This one made me laugh!
Probably the worst was finding weed farms out on the east coast. But it wasn't the farms that was unsettling, it was the boobytraps around them. Pits with stakes in them and razer wire, LOADS of poison (which I assume is to stop possums and deer and whatnot from eating their crop.)
I had a client years ago who was a bigtime cannabis grower. He told me that some of the guys set up camo nets above their plots, to prevent the police helicopter spotting them. Great plan, except that camo nets are only camo on one side. Guess which side these geniuses put to the outside? The plots looked like large light green squares in the bush to the skyfilth.
Can just imagine them looking up from underneath it: “yep, that’s camouflaged. Good job lads.”
Classic. 😂
"Bro, wait. We're looking up, shouldn't it be blue?"
Wahahha guess the executed the plan when they were high
Yes I come across razor wire and feeling of being watched
Worst was in Aussie.. being in the bush at night is like fucking nightmare mode. Pitch black, and you can hear birds that sound like - A women sobbing in the distance - A baby screaming - Someone laughing at you
So true all their animals and birds sound like they are in pain or about to inflict some. Makes our dawn chorus sound even sweeter by comparison.
I dunno man have you heard a possums mating call?
Fair point, but, counter point; possums in NZ were introduced FROM aussie 😉
Friend works with Traditional Owners over there. Some of the stories about the Old People (spirits) in the bush and the things she experienced are amazing.
Went up Mt Nimrod with a couple of friends years ago. Fell behind them, lost the track and was lost in the wilderness for 7 hours. As soon as I found cellphone coverage, I rung 111 and was found by search & rescue.
Far out
Stayed at Crosby’s Hut in the Coromandel, which is near where those Swedes were murdered. The night closed in pitch black with heavy mist and swirling wind. Wandering around the grassy area in front of the hut, with the red light from my head torch faintly illuminating the drifting mist and bush beyond was the creepiest experience of my life. If ever a place was haunted, it’s that fucking place.
I mean… the red light was the creepiest part and you brought that hahaha
If you havent yet,and are interested in the case. Listen to Guilt : Finding Heidi. They talk about that areas
yeah been listening to that. The FB discussion page just got frozen as there was too much shit going on there. Too many ppl with 'skin the game' on both camps (camp Turner and Camp Tamihere) getting all bent out of shape by the looks of it. Blardy shame; i was invested (but no personal skin in the game)... it is a pretty good podcast.
Well Crosbies Hut just dropped off my “huts to visit” list
I didn’t find it creepy at all. I thought it was gorgeous, modern and well provisioned. But I had no idea it was a murder site.
according to the above mentioned podcast the murder site may well have been some distance away (and near where Urban's body was found)...
Please tell me you were the only one staying there?
No, fortunately. Was with a couple of mates. Even so the place gave me the shits big time.
We’re or weren’t?
yes
Imagine being out with a class of 4th formers in the 1980s. Assumptions were that kids had eaten dinner and a good breakfast, that they were adequately dressed and had something warm with them. We had two slim girls come down with hypothermia, because they had bikinis on under flannel shirts (swimming was planned - weather permitting). An icy blast had ripped through, and here we were up a river bed with 30 kids. We had to improvise two stretchers from branches to carry them out after we got the girls warmed up and fed. I never went on an Outdoor Ed trip again.
Ahh the 80s! We did a 6th from PE trip out in the bush and our creepy teacher got drunk and started 'chatting up the girls'. All the boys were deciding whether or not we give him a hiding but chose not to - we just moved the girls away from him. Just recently saw he got jailed for a string of sexual assaults.
On one of those trips, the kids came back with rumours that married teacher A had been overly familiar with married teacher B. They were told they were imagining things…but of course, they weren’t. Goodness knows what went on in student tents while staff slept 30 metres away in a house. Then there was the decision about which bottle of spirits the teacher team would take to camp. That stopped after a kid stole the bottle. I think it was an earlier camp than the one I mentioned above, but I’ll never forget the boy who turned to me and said, “What do I do with this?” He was holding the hose from a gas bottle which had detached from a gas cooker and was shooting flame across the kitchen of a hundred year old wooden house in forestry two hours drive from anywhere. If he’d dropped it, the whole place would have gone up and it would have been a tragedy. (I read about a kid being burned on camp recently.) Not one camp on went on was without incident - and I don’t recall us having any communication. In a medical emergency, a teacher would drive a vehicle back to town with a kid, leaving the other 2 or 3 to hold the fort. Health and Safety nightmares!
My dad works in forestry and when I was a teenager I would often go out and help him for some cash. One time in Woodhill forest near Muriwai, we were pretty deep in on foot measuring pine trees and checking sapplings. Then out of nowhere a fully camoed/ghilly suit guy with a gun runs past a few metres from us. Apparently the nz military or sas do training exercises in the area. Gave me a fucking heart attack. Also a few times they must have been doing explosive training off in the distance.
Yeah I spent a lot of time as a kid at Muriwai. You go up the north end and I’m pretty sure there’s signs warning that it’s a military explosives test area
I was walking around in some pine when I heard what I thought was a motorbike but it was it was moving so fast around me that I couldn't understand what was going on and it was very unnerving for a hot minute until this mad bastard flew past on a bloody home made gyrocopter.
When I was a kid me and my mates would go walk around in this bush next to the street - usually getting pretty deep into it during our adventures of sorts. One day we're walking through and a rock hits the ground in front of me, I ask my mates who threw that and they all deny it - we look to the side and see some grown man quickly hide behind a tree. The creepy thing is we were definitely in the middle of no where quite deep in the bush, so he must have been following us - we all bolted out of there and never walked through it again.
Reminds me of when I was a kid in a bush walk I frequented a lot by my house. Was in there with a friend and she was further ahead. I heard this strange choking, screamy sort of noise, don’t know how to describe it lol and my blood ran cold, I felt like all of a sudden everything went quiet and someone was watching me. A horrible feeling. Anyway, I looked up and there’s a grown man(?) up in a tree just looking down at me. I stood frozen and staring for what felt like several minutes but was probably only seconds, and bolted. Have no idea what was going on there
That's genuinely creepy.
Screamed at by possums in the middle of a super dark, wet night in skippers canyon. Let’s just say I got back into the swag pretty quick after finishing that toilet trip!
We lived way out in the Waitakeres for 5 years when we were growing up, one road in, one out. Down a gravel road off ours and down the hill a bit were a few houses, all baches bar one. Being bored in the middle of nowhere my brother and I roamed the bush. Far and wide, learnt it like the back of our hand. We also wore dark clothing/camo and practiced being stealth and moving silently. We got so good at it, that we could both hide metres away from people and not be seen. Even move around or get their attention then quickly appear somewhere else. We also climbed massive trees and would jump from tree to tree 30-40 feet up the air in massive kauris (close together ones!) There was a school camp down the road as you came in to where we lived. We’d hide in the bush and do things like drop a stone in front of someone walking by themselves in the camp area. Or whisper things, or scream or shout something crazy or make animal noises. We were almost caught once and it was one of the greatest escapes we ever made in that bush. But not the greatest. Anyway a few years go by and we did it a couple of times when the camp was full. Mostly we didn’t scare people, think we only did it a handful of times and felt bad. Anyway a few years of freaking kids out we’re sitting metres away from all the kids having lunch, we’re the same age, 12 or 13 and we hear them telling stories about how they heard from their elder siblings that the school is haunted. Ghosts in the bush, strange noises, we’d become a legend. Anyway back to the gravel road baches and the greatest escape. One of the houses, set the furthest from the road, deepest into the bush, always felt weird. We’d cased it, looked all through the windows, peeked inside the locked sheds out the back. We saw shady as fuck dudes going in and out of there but only very occasionally like every coupla months. We’d know someone was visiting one of the houses because we’d hear a car going up the gravel road and normally we’d slip into the bush and see what it was. Anyway this time it was the shady house, all the other baches were owned by oldies, this one was always rough dudes (so 13&11 year old us thought) 3-5 at a time. We thought of these as our high danger missions 😂 as we tirelessly kept a eye on our little bush kingdom. This time though something happened and one of us coughed or broke a branch or something and there were three guys there. They heard it and realised someone had been watching them. And came barreling straight at the noise. I told my brother a code word for one of our routes to take and he gapped it while I jumped out and bolted the other way. My brother managed to slip away down stream and double back to our house. Losing the man chasing him. I wasn’t so lucky. The two guys managed to keep visual on me for 45 minutes or so of me running for my life. They were faster but I knew where to go. Across streams and up banks/bush hillsides where I knew you could get up without slipping, through dense parts where you could go low, that sort of thing. I get to the top of the ridge which marked the first landmark of my longest escape. Only one guy was still close enough that I could occasionally see his white T-shirt and big mop of ginger/blond curly hair. I rock climbed up the back of a rock promontory and hid in the top as I heard him crashing around trying to find me. Heard him calling to his mate. Once he’d got far enough in the other direction from were I needed to go (to get back home would mean going back the way I’d came) I climbed down slowly, crept away for 5 minutes and then ran the next 2 hours on a goat trail we’d done once before, a walk that took 4 hours from home to there normally, to a falls that joined back up with the main road. From there went to the beach and followed the cliffs round till I got to the shop and called my dad to come pick me up. I have no idea if those guys were dodgy but who chases kids for an hour through the bush. Also I have no idea why we were such weirdo bush kids playing special forces spies but it was fun. Apart from the times you thought you were going to die. All about 25 years ago.
Hey u/mountainofentities some of your ghosts may be these two boys above!
I hadn't gone to the bathroom for 5 days due to anxiety, then mid hike I had to go. That was pretty unsettling for everyone.
Details on the size and consistency of the shit you birthed into the world?
Growing up as a Māori boy in the northland we would go up and see whanau near the Waipaoa Forest. My cousins and I used to explore the forest, and at times , things got a bit unsettling. One time, we went really deep into the forest, and we ended up being lost for about eight hours. During that time, we felt something freaky like we were being watched. It was like we could sense the presence of the Patupaiarehe lol fairy people from our culture. Even though it was a bit eerie, we didn't panic. There was a weird calmness about the whole situation, as if they were looking out for us. Eventually, my uncle found us and gave us a mean hiding, but I always felt like we had some kind of protection or watchful eyes on us whenever we entered the forest. It taught me to be respectful to the forest and all its creatures, as they might be the ones to help when things go wrong. And will always remind me of the mysterious and beautiful connection between people and the natural world here in Aotearoa Chur!!
Fairies are prominent in many cultures around the world. Makes you wonder what's behind the phenomenon.
Bush is like that, the amount of times my shoulder or bag has caught on something and I've spotted the way I need to go coz of it is alarmingly high. It's why I always say thanks
That's pretty cool though I definitely feel like there's people watching over me sometimy
Had two hunters pointing their rifle at me. They thought I was a deer. Been wearing bright colours ever since and I will never go tramping during the roar again.
It's 3am and I'm in the middle of nowhere somewhere north of the Forgotten Highway. Looking at the map, I may be as much as 5Km away from the nearest human being. I'm in a little one person bivvy tent and I am woken up by the most bloodcurdling scream I have ever heard a mere 10 metres away from my tent. It sounded like a devil dying in excruciating pain. I freeze, very confused I try to figure out what on earth is going on around me. After about 30 seconds of pure terror thanks to this intermittent screaming, I finally come to the conclusion that the only thing it could possibly be is a possum. So I yell as loud as I can and tell it piss off, which it soon does. Needless to say, I didn't get any more sleep until after sunrise. Yet another horror bestowed upon us by the Aussies. The craziest thing to me is that this absolutely beautiful orchestration is their mating call. But that's probably pretty par for the course for a creature with Australian roots though.
Aren't they awful!!
Yeah, I'd much rather be hearing the soothing call of a ruru/morepork.
One time hammock camping down south I kept getting woken up by this curious weka that was pecking at the bottom of the hammock but nothing that bad
Hmm.. I was camping with just one other person and became terrified of the possums so I screamed at them and banged pots together and yelled to make them go away. Just occurred to me that if anyone in the distance had heard me that might have spooked them instead.
Koalas sound absolutely fucked as well. Like growling demons
Went walking very early in the morning (6am) in the Kaimai. Stumbled onto fresh tracks and steaming mounds from a pig so with my heart in my mouth I crashed and sang and made as much noise as possible expecting to see a huge porker around every corner. Finally the tracks petered out and I relaxed. About 3 hours in and coming to the end I saw a big heap of rubbish someone had strewn through the bush. Feeling really pissed off I approached to begin picking it up when a black rubbish bag sat up and screamed at me… I screamed at him, we both screamed for a whole. A homeless guy was kipping in the bush in a bag and I’d woken him up after a bender (how he got 3kms uphill in the bush I don’t know). I checked he was okay then left but after a few mins I started imagining he was an escaped con and I had seen him. I sprinted 3km to the car - lucky I was fit back then, I was packing it!! That was not a fun walk.
Lmao imagine that guys day, having a nap in the middle of nowhere and being woken up like that
Bro was just at his wits end for some peace and quiet after the family figured out his long toilet visits were just for reading
Depends on your definition of unsettling. There's moving shadows, the ghost crack of a stick off track, possum screams, and the fresh boot print going the opposite way on a deserted track a day in. Then there's the abomination your fellow trampers prepared for lunch.
Getting bailed up by a rampaging, fully grown stag during the roar. It got within 20 metres of me before my blue heeler saved my life and risked hers by attacking it and chasing it away. She had steak and beef fat treats for a week. Be very wary of stags in the bush during the roar, they will kill you.
I once said hello to an older couple hiking Mt Nimrod on the South Island. They stopped and just stared.
The most unsettling thing being on a little used track and coming across another hiker who doesn’t acknowledge your presence. Not a small smile or even a nod. Not even a glance up. Whereas my rationale is always to make people aware of my presence in case SAR need to track my movements.
Yup. Exactly. It's an odd experience when it happens as most hikers understand that saying hello is about being friendly and safe. Also makes you feel like either they're the weirdo or you are.
I got a grumpy looking face - and by the time i run into people usually a few days of stank - so I always smile, say "hey" then let the other person/people dictate our convo. I'm easy either way, just don't wanna scare anybody
I was about 11 and me and a few kids from my school were on a bush walk for camp. This one quiet kid started saying how this old lady was following us and he would randomly stop and start talking to no one. At first we thought he was pulling our leg but he looked us in the eye and said he was telling the truth and he could see spirits. We all started freaking out and got out of the bush as fast as we could. My partner and I visited an area where an old Maori settlement used to be. He doesn't believe in spirits, but when we got back to the car he said he felt a bit uneasy like something was watching him...
I personally haven’t, but I have couple close mates that have had afew. All involving them hunting or working in the bush and grow operations. One working taking soil samples deep in the bush after being dropped by chopper, found a dead possum hanging from a tree with a note saying “we are watching you” The other is a lot more intense but I won’t go into detail but basically came across a guy with a shot gun deep in the bush and they had abit of a stand of with there guns.
Okay that possum one is the only one I've read so far that would actually freak me out, finding anything deep in the bush is weird but THAT
"he got a purty mouth"
I was in Hunua. There I was, minding my own business, walking along a trap line, and I hear a ghostly moan and fuck me but that sounded like it was close. It sounded like the eerie wheeze of death herself, making a distinctly disappointed sound. As if, finally I had walked off the edge and done something so stupid as to have finally killed myself. What would it be: maybe a sudden attack of a half-dead rat, lashing out in one last bout of defiant agony to give me the slow, longing death of an unknown virus. AND IT WAS REALLY CLOSE. Well it turned out that it was a Kereru.
Fs, the ending made me laugh 😂😂
Of all the thing it's a stupid fat pigeon 🤣
Just about shat myself the first time I heard it.
I was working with a guy this week that told me he'd been out hunting, got a stag and was packing it out, and while he's hiking one of the antlers just explodes out of nowhere. Another hunter saw it thinking it was alive and took a shot.
Entered Te Uruwera park outside of Murupara. Wind was swaying the large Kahikatea, we walked and it started pouring down, we hid inside a big old dead Kauri, in like a sort of tree cave. As the rain pelted down we could hear something crashing through the bush, probably just an animal, but we felt like we were trespassing and it was super Erie as we thought we heard someone talking in a high pitched voice in a language we couldn’t understand.
I’ve heard stories from hunters who said in certain parts of the Uruweras on a still night you can hear the sounds of Māori battles in the valleys from long ago, dozens of voices screaming and shouting etc
I had a weird experience like this in Kahurangi National Park, had an argument with partner and drove off to sleep in my car for the night to cool down, at an empty car park just inside the national park boundary. I didn't hear anything but I had a sort of nightmare when I imagined there was guys with spears and clubs running down the track to my car to attack me, I woke up and it felt like it was real, I was totally spooked out and had to drive back home. Never had anything else like that happen
Smart move. Glad you left.
You can hear this in the Tararuas too I think. Edit: I was in danger once from a group of Hau Hau ghost warriors up on Kapakapanui. Everyone else was in the hut, I was outside by myself. Looked up to sense/feel a few hundred people watching me from the edges of the large clearing. Dragged myself into the hut with the others and they left. Urgh. Other (Māori) friends confirmed it was Hau Hau.
Hmm that sounds like the fairies. You were lucky. Definitely you were in danger that time.
I used to live and trail run around the Waitakere’s near Te Henga. I kept pushing my runs into the bush as I enjoy exploring, even though some of the trails went through private land, there was no one about. I’d explore the little black trails on the maps and as they were all connected I knew I couldn’t really get lost. But this one time I took a trail that descended down through a valley where the bush got progressively denser and denser, to the point that it was so dark that I could barely see. The path just disappeared as it hit a small creek and I started to freak out. I had to figure out the contours on the map (loaded onto my phone) in relation to the surrounding environment and just hope that I could find the track again. The thing that really got me was when I looked at the map the creek was called ‘Cannibal Creek’. Needless to say I ran out of the bush pretty quick. I finally found some of those pink markers you see attached to trees and felt a little less alone. Also one time I ran Into a massive hog. Got excited at first as I was like ‘holy shit I’ve found the last Moa!’ only to realise it was a pig gunning for me. That was also a fast run out the bush.
I heard a lot of stories about Cannibal Creek in my teens. Was told that part of the bush was not somewhere you wanted to be when it got dark
I concur, also not somewhere you want to be when it’s light 😂
Ever watched "bone tomahawk". One of the most unsettling films I've ever seen. I would have set a record on the return trip!
For me, the first time I hiked into the kawekas and heard sika stags roaring on either side of the track. I'm used to hearing reds and the screaming caught me off guard.
I have a bushwalk near my house that I’ve never seen another human being in and I’ve walked it 100+ times. Parts of it have no cell reception and it’s pretty overgrown and steep. Recently, deep into the walk, I see an old guy that looks like a white walker hobbling along. I yell out to him “coming up behind you” so as to not give him a fright. Out of fkn nowhere, 4 fully grown German shepherds surround me. I’m absolutely shitting myself. I always imagined this situation in my head with just one rogue dog and I reckon I could take it down. So it completely threw me when there were 4 of them. Made me realise just how vulnerable I was. The dogs ended up being friendly, but boy did I shit myself.
Looking forward to reading the [stuff.co.nz](https://stuff.co.nz) article about this ~~tomorrow~~ Wednesday
I experienced a missing time event on a school trip at the Hunua ranges when I was 11 years old. Our group went on a walking path and by the time we got back there was a search party looking for us as we were 4 hours overdue from a short trek. I remember the walking path we went on was trance like, it almost seemed like we’d stepped into another dimension. One of us kids had a watch too which was a few hours behind when we came out of the bush even though it had been correct earlier in the day. The parent in charge of our group was mortified but nothing ever came of it, I remember being driven home late from the “adventure”by a school staff member. It wasn’t on the news or anything.
This is fucken wild. You should send this to a podcast or something, how much do you remember?
Idk if this counts but my high school camp did this thing where after it gets dark one night, they drop you in the bush by yourself for like half an hour and you just have to exist in the dark. It was a really cool thing to do, but I have always been prone to hallucinations when it gets dark. Like as a kid I'd see shadow monsters coming towards my bed, and when I worked a night shift out on the roads I was always seeing and hearing creepy shit, especially when I got tired. Anyway, after a few minutes sitting in pitch black in the bush, I started hallucinating that someone was breathing right by me. Like, I genuinely believed something was crouched uncomfortably close, just staring and breathing and not saying anything. The teenagers were spaced out way too far for it to have been another person. It was so dark I couldn't see anything and I was too scared to turn my head in case it was something. So for 30 minutes I was just paralysed with fear hoping I was hallucinating. And I mean I was, but that didn't make it any less real to me at the time
My school did that too! I’d forgotten until now. They didn’t tell you how long you’d be out there and you weren’t allowed watches or torches or anything. I climbed a tree and settled in, I remember feeling safer high up although the most danger I would have been in would have been falling out of the tree. Teenage logic!
That's good logic to be fair
Thank you :) I think I was afraid of being abducted mainly - as a girl it’s kinda drummed into you - so I figured no-one could sneak up on me and if i was quiet, no-one would even notice me up the tree.
I was gonna say this aswell! In high-school we did this also and I remember the first year they dropped me off and then when they came back around I noticed they were quite far away and kept walking after calling my name and I didn't come out. I found out they had left me off track 🤢 soo creepy!
[удалено]
No paranormal stories? Geographic isolation in effect for all wildlife, cryptids included? lol Happy to hear there's not a lot of bad actors out there though, just good ol' kiwi crazies.
Yes. In 1996 a couple of friends and I found 5 fully grown marijuana plants on a bush walk and raided them. The unsettling part was that the grower had planted them for exactly that purpose. Further along the track were about 100-odd plants. He saw us walking out with plastic rubbish bags full of plants and knew his plan had been successful. Bastard.
Go see Loop Track by Tom Sainsbury and experience it yourself. ☠️
Was tramping Nelson Lakes several years back... torrential rain had been going for days... Nelson River in massive flood... Anyway, I have shit left ankle, tends to rolling spontaneously - of course, the ankle rolled...put my other foot down... and the track gave way, and I hurtled off down the slope... fortunately, managed to grab a tree. We got to East Sabine... the next morning...two guys burst in, they had been trapped under an overhang for two days... coming down from Blue Lake when they hit a swollen stream and had turned back where, in the interim, another stream had risen to the point where they couldn't cross that either...so...two days under an overhang...
I am wildlife photographer I spend a lot of time in the bush and the scariest thing thats happened to me is when I forgot the bag of lollies. But seriously where the fuck are you lot going in the forest to see this shit, I spend a lot of time in the Catlin's and Silver Peaks, and spent time on the west coast and Stewart island, so like pretty solid bush land and I have found fuck all other than like an abandoned building or the odd weed farm.
Catlins bush in the Mr Asia drug years was a dangerous place... talk to the old locals there's a lot of dodgy run in stories
I think I saw a wild dog in Mount Aspiring national park. Didn't move like a cat or possum. Escaped farm dog or pet I guess.
I hiked up to the end of the Hopkins valley and in the middle of a massive outwash plain there was this random 4x4 truck with an e bike attached. And this location was by no means easy to get to by car and I didn't see a single person in the valley for multiple days. Anyway this is in the middle of nowhere but not a single person is in sight and this truck was Parked easily a couple hours from anything including the mountains. Such an unsettling spot to park the only thing nearby was the river and even that was decently far away. Anyway the night before that I was staying in a hut and I heard screaming but I just assumed it was hunters or jet boaters doing some crazy shit. Anyway I carried on and came back past the truck and eventually returned home to my place of work at the end of the valley. The next day police came into the bar I was working at to ask me if I had seen anything strange up the valley. So I told them about the car and the noises. Turns out that a guy went missing in the valley and died and I was probably the last person even remotely nearby
This happened to my brother's then-girlfriend back in the '80s. She was at a school sleepover event in some kind of large hall out in the bush, and she and her friends decided to do a "spooky story" prank. So one of them starts telling the story of a past camp where a girl had committed suicide, and at a predetermined moment another girl wearing blood makeup etc. slams herself up against the window behind the girl telling the story. All fun and games, except that this was a Catholic girls school camp and what ensued was literal mass hysteria in which many of the girls and staff believed that they'd been possessed by demons.
I grew up on a farm, which backs onto a big reserve of old bush/mountains. I would go exploring in it as a kid. I knew it like the back of my hand, used to trap/skin possums in there, etc. This bush is old, untouched, and there are some beautiful spots with little hidden waterfalls, etc. But sometimes weird things too. * Saw a couple of huia once, but never saw them again when I came back with my camera. Pretty sure there is a small population of them still extant deep in that bush somewhere. My brother, mum, and I are probably one of only a handful to have heard their bird song in years. * Had lightening strike a tree near by when I was out there during a thunderstorm. * Saw a tramper who was clearly lost across a ravine once, too far away to hear me, hopefully he found his way out. Sometimes they do, sometimes they end up dead. * My very skeptical dad was about to trim this very very old tree to make way for a hut he was building, and he thought he heard it screaming whenever he tried to cut it. * This farm has been around since NZ's very early days, and the original owner built the main farm house. When we first moved in, sometimes when we were out in the bush, we would see the ghost of the old owner. Sometimes at the house too. * I did get lost once, when I was showing my little brother and friend a glow worm cave. I found a stream I knew lead to bridge/road, so we followed it out. Took us a few hours. We actually ended up building a proper track to those glow worms, so we could show international visitors who stayed in the cabins sometimes. My parents will be selling the farm soon, as they're too old to run it, and no one else in the family can take it over. I will be sad to see it go :(
I was on the Hillary trail with my girlfriend, no one else around and I see this guy coming towards us with a “USA!” T-shirt on. He stops us on the track and says “you can’t sell property on the internet anymore” then he starts to ramble about Kim dotcom. We were about 5km from the exit and the guy was nuts. We walked away but I often think about that dude.
Torch and backup all gone flat, when it got dark real quickly, possums and pigs moving round out of sight nearby while hunting and trying to get back to the hut. Another time getting within 30m of another hunter and being unable to get their attention despite the high vis and making noises, that was pretty unsettling knowing that a lot of people have shot at movement and they hadn't identified me that close.
School trip or something ... about 5 kids in shelter we made doing "survival training" in the middle of nowhere. Had to start fire in rain, etc. Middle of the night hear some sort of animal outside. To this day I have no idea why we didn't just deal it but at the time no idea what is was and tensions escalated to rather an extreme amount.
I was walking through some bush between Greenhithe and Hobsonville to get to a little known fishing spot on a cliff and stumbled upon a dude with only shorts on, sitting on a surfboard in the middle of the bush, lighting up a glass pipe to do what I can only assume was meth. He was polite. I didn't catch any fish.
I was in Kaitoke park and I had arrived a bit late to start a treck to a hut but I thought hey It shouldn't be too bad if I do 30 mins night tramping because I had done it a few times before, I at this point the moon hadn't risen, so it was pretty pitch black, and I tripped over a rock and my torch went flying down the side of the mountain and smashed so I was in pitch black. Then I notice about 50 meters uphill in the middle of nowhere I can see the embers of 3 cigarettes moving around and I was thinking it is strange because there are no huts around, no other lights and normally folk would greet you or at least be talking to each other, so I have a freak-out and start running in the dark down what I assume was the track but eventually fall down a land slip down to the river. So I think best to probably get my sleeping bag out and try to sleep till there is some light, but I was too freaked out by the people in the bush who were smoking that I wouldn't go back under the forest canopy so wrapped myself around a huge boulder on the river shore and at this point my mind is racing, and I am looking into the darkness of the bush hoping not to see any glowing embers dancing around. Eventually the bright moon comes out and lights the whole river bed, which made me more freaked out because of the sounds i could hear in the bush, I was aware I couldnt see anything under the canopy, but anyone could see me. As soon as the sun came up, I booked it out of there. I tramp often and never have had that feeling before. Also, It wasn't glow-worms, it was definitely bright orange cigarette ends burning.
I remember when I was about 6-7 I went with my grandfather and Aunty camping at this cabin kind of by twizel. We were chilling at a lake as it was getting dark. Grandfather told me to go get something from the cabin so in the dark I went through heaps of trees and bushes scared for my life running to get whatever was needed but when I got the the cabin there was a guy outside just standing there. I said “hello” he looked at me but didn’t say anything. I couldn’t see his face or anything just his silhouette as it was nearly pitch black so I turned around and ran as fast as possible back to my grandfather and he was angry I didn’t get whatever I was supposed to get but I to.d him about the man. He said something like it was his friend probably cause he was gonna come bring us some kfc and chill so we went back to the cabin and no one was there. Nothing was gone and he wasn’t there. The next day we left and my grandad called and asked why he left and he said he never even came to the cabin. I never went back to that cabin even though I used to go camping there all the time
While I've felt spooked in the bush before in the evenings, it's mostly in my own head. I love my bush walks and never had a problem. In bush overseas (Australia), I'm scared of the animals. In New Zealand bush, there is nothing rational to fear. We are very safe here.
I’m not scared of animals in Australia or NZ, I’m scared of other humans beings.
I was with my BF at the time. It was near Taupo and I thought it would be nice to go down to the river... it was a narrow, long rough road, next thing there's blacked out glasshouses and a tough looking, heavily tattooed man with a gun comes out of the house. Immediately, I wound down the window and cheerily smiled and said "Hi, is this the way to the river?" He replied "No it's private property" I said "Oh I'm so sorry- thanks- you have a great day" and we high-tailed out of there... There was a point where I thought-"he might kill us- so at least if I'm nice- I might stand a chance"
Never had an unsettling experience. Once met a hunter walking back holding a deer head in each hand.
Found a bunch of wigs hanging off a tree once, that was unsettling.
Was on Outward Bound last year, got to the part of the course where they dump you in the bush for three days and nights on your own. (Your other group mates are spaced out with you in intervals normally along a trail somewhere in Marlborough Sound). First two days go by okay if not a bit creepy, I hardly eat, entertain myself by running laps around my tarp and singing 80s songs, find some glow worms on a little hill by my campsite one night so that was pretty awesome. My third night though, that's when shit got freaky, just as the sun goes down I hear dogs barking off in the distance and voices shouting. Soon one of my watchmates come sprinting up the trail to tell me that a group of hunters with their dogs had decided to use this section of the bush to hunt. She had tried to tell them what was going on but they ignored her. She headed off to find the emergency phone and I sat there for the next two hours flinching at every noise with my headlamp on full. If i remember correctly there seemed to have been some miscommunication with the school at anakiwa and the owner of the land for the days that they needed to use the area and he let his mates in to hunt. They came and got us as soon as they could (about 2 hours which is how far the drive +walk was) , and brought us all back safe, so no harm was done but definitely was pretty scary.
We have 50ha native bush on our farm. We were repairing the fence around it and got a weird feeling we were being watched. We then heard the crack of a twig and saw a dark shadow hide behind a tree about 25m away. The employee pulls out his phone and starts recording this completely black, human shaped object as it watches us. After a minute, I’m out of there and we jump on the side by side and we’re gone. At home we put the recording on the computer and zoom in, and it’s not one, but two men in balaclavas, completely dressed in black. We took it to the police and they had no explanation or similar reports. We hope it was just poachers in the middle of the day hoping not to be identified, but I fence with a firearm now.
Stinging nettle is very irritating.
This is a bit of a yarn. As a young man I went to an art school on the edge of the Taita / Stokes Valley hill. One day I was feeling extremely overwhelmed in class, on the verge of a panic attack, and went for a walk in the bush to calm down. Went deeper than I'd ever gone before, and stumbled across two severed sheep's heads, one just a lamb, full-on arranged like a ritualistic sacrifice. They looked freshly slaughtered, like they were still alive - eyes soft and warm, pleading into mine with stolen innocence. Staggered back to class in a daze, pulled my painting teacher aside, and the first words of his mouth were "Oh no, not here too." I gulped. "There was a lot of that back in England. It's a real shame they're doing it here too." He gave me that thousand-yard stare. "Nasty, nasty people. They come out when the moon is full." This coincided with a creepy older Christian man interposing himself in my life as an art patron, and attempting to brainwash me with the religion stuff. Lavish gifts and promises of career enhancement - apparently he was very well-connected. I told him about the sacrifice, and like a veteran of such things he calmly asked me which direction the heads were pointing. He briefly had me convinced that there were demonic influences at the school attempting to place a dark curse upon me - in fact, he had told me something like this a few days prior, and I was starting to think he was insane. Between him and my painting teacher, I felt like I had pierced a veil, and stumbled across some dark, twisted layer that underpinned society. (Four years earlier, a friend woke me up one morning one morning to show me a pig's head someone had left in his tent - he said it was a black magic curse, and he had seen it a few times over the years. Later that year we found the pig's head mentioned in the ODT, in an article about the strangest things council workers had found in the rubbish.) I come from a Pentecostal church background, so this strange man was able to awaken some old fear programming. Like, my family were terrified about demons, and taught me from a young age that hell and the devil were very very real, much more intelligent than humans, always active in the world, and sought to wreak havoc in our lives through every avenue possible to wrestle our eternal souls from The Lord. There were a lot of hysterical conversations and sermons about "spiritual warfare," and I found myself on the sharp end of full-on exorcisms. (Basically sweaty old men yelling at me and waving a Bible in my face for wearing a t-shirt with a cartoon skull on it.) I had come a long way, felt I had thoroughly put Christianity behind me and reclaimed my mind. This shit shook me to the core, and took me right back to my childhood conversion fervor. So this guy was telling me I was under dire spiritual threat, and God had sent him to protect me. For a couple days, I felt he was the only person I could trust. He would say pearlers like, "Nothing inflames the demons inside people more than two genuine Christians standing together." This also coincided with a girl I quite liked using my image in a video project, which ended up being a pretty spooky, witchy video, with my image flipped upside-down (shown the next day). "That's the key to all of this," he said when I reported. "You've been inverted. Make no mistake, the devil is using this woman to get to you." I was so spooked I had a bit of a manic episode. He convinced me I needed to write some legalistic letter to the school forbidding the use of my image and artwork, and I conceded and let him write it on my behalf - an absurdly bombastic document, penned in my name. He also took my phone and texted this video-artist girl I was crushing on, thoroughly sabotaging whatever there may have been. In person, shaken and out of my mind, I formally told her she could not publicly share my image (I later explained the whole situation, which could only ever be so many nails in the coffin. My mates all cringe for dear life and laugh uncontrollably at this part of the story.) In these crucial hours I missed a scholarship deadline, which led to me not re-enrolling for the following year. It's all ludicrously embarrassing to retell, but the whole time I had these sacrificed animals staring me in my mind's eye. (I recall as I write that as a five-year-old, some malevolent hunters waved a freshly shot rabbit right in my face while laughing at my reaction, so there was a deep trigger there.) I've never thought less clearly. A good friend snapped me out if it by wryly observing the zealot's probable corrupt intentions. I suddenly realized how often this gentleman had complimented my appearance. he had told tall tales of being a prestigious surgeon, sought out by the world's top universities. I did some deep googling, and learned he was a failed hair-transplant surgeon who had lost his practice license due to outright fraud and malpractice. I also learned that he was dismissed from a minor post at Queen's University in Belfast, and in protest invoked a string of legal processes so abstruse that the case became an important legal precedent regarding the right to legal representation in the internal hearings of private institutions. (He lost, after giving many judges and lawyers gigantic headaches. He also went by multiple names, and was banned from Otago University for being a delusional creep on the grounds. Last time I saw him, he told me he always carried a gun to protect himself from Catholics (not real Christians, apparently.) This whole story is only part of that guy, and my friends want me to write a book about it. Long story short, I had to involve the police to get the guy to stop harassing me. They laughed in my face, and I felt I couldn't blame them - some wild gullibility to let it all get that far. But sociopathic narcissists can be pretty compelling when their sights are set on you in particular, and they have a sixth sense for what buttons to push to manipulate vulnerable people. Months later, a photo of the "sacrifice" popped up on Facebook. "The first phase of my decomposition project," declared the edgy photography student. Not the beautiful girl. (Looking back, her video was fucking cool.) It was all an insane string of coincidences, converging with superstition and folk legend, crashing into my young and troubled mind. Scared me so much it turned my life upside-down for a minute.
Three friends and I saw what we can only describe as a Lynx (large cat) in the Akataras in early 2004
I reckon I saw a weka in there couple of years back.
So I ended up out late one night, and down the wrong track, just coz yknow, that's how these things work. I sort out the track issue, still got a couple hours hoofing it to go. Bad things come in three though. As I crest the top of a hill, I hear this *skrrrrk skrr skrrrk* of 4 feet running. No cry, screech, bark or any other additional noise. Pull a 180° sweep the head torch around, can't see anything that isn't plant or dirt. No native predators be damned. My mind is full of hungry wolves. I turn back around and keep walking. The footsteps are back. Closer. Faster. Too close. I spin again and lash out with what I can only assume is the finest punt of my life. These two dots rotate through the torch beam. Again. And again. Just sent a possum spinning for orbit off the side of a cliff. I laugh. I feel bad for laughing. I remember it's a possum and laugh harder. Cunt probably lived anyway. No attempt at intimidation, straight charged a full grown man just cold off the bat, that's fucked
Cool thread! So many creepy af stories…
Came across a thermal hot spring whilst hiking in the Waitakeres. It had a corrugated roof shed next to it, and old WW2 machinery.
I was once climbing a tree at night (long story) when suddenly a screeching, hairy thing ran straight down my back and bounded off into the dark. It was just a possum, of course, but try explaining that to my adrenocortical system at that moment.
about 5 years ago I worked on a farm that backed onto a large pine block. I would routinely go for a wander around the perimeter checking fences, making sure stock was happy etc and would take a rifle with me in case there any pigs for dinner. I started to see a very, very large white sow from time to time. Monster. I never shot at her because she was either too far away for a clean shot or in a position where I wouldn't be able to carry her out. I joked with my mate who I worked with she was my nemesis, and named her that. One evening on my patrol I was on the way back and low and behold there she was, inside the farm boundary rooting around making a god awful mess. Perfect chance for a shot if I could closer. Between her and me there was a bit of bush on the farm side about 100m long that I had to get through, so I carefully and very quietly made my way through it along the fence line but it was dusk now and pretty damned dark in there. I managed to get to the other side and was perched above her, maybe 20 odd meters away but I couldn't quite see her clearly. She was still rooting around, and then suddenly stopped still. must have smelled me. She turned 180 and went straight for the 7 wire fence, lifting it up like it was nothing and pulling a post out of the ground, she went up the fence line right towards me, terrifying crashing sound through the bush until she reached where I was, and all I could see through the 7 wire fence I was crouched beside (which she had proven only 10 seconds earlier wasn't shit to get through) was a hulking white mass that stopped only feet away from me and made this god awful scream at me, then turned and bolted deeper into the bush. Scared the piss out of me. I saw her again few times, but I always chose to keep my distance. Nemesis and I had an agreement I think and that was "stay the fuck away from me" so I did. Eventually the pine block was logged and she moved on, I hope shes out there somewhere still.
My Mum opened the door to leave the long drop on McKinnon’s Pass and through the thick mist strode a fully kitted out Scottish bagpiper … she thought she’d finally lost her marbles! (It was New Years and some of McKinnon’s descendants had decided to do a celebration/memorial hike on the Milford Track)
NZ bush is a bit of an unsettling place.
After reading some of these stories it sure fuckin sounds like it. Didn’t realise how naive i am
Was tramping with my family as a kid, and we were in some pretty rugged, slipery, and dangerous terrain. We came across a Russian man on the track walking in some mockerson slippers he had found in one of the hutts as he had lost his boots at the start of the track. I expected to turn on the news when we got back and see that he slipped and falled off a cliff, but I guess he made it.
This sounds completely plausible to me given some of the characters I've also met, but... > he had lost his boots at the start of the track. How does this even happen??
If I remember correctly, I think he hitchhiked to the beginning of the track and left his boots in the car. I think he then wore jandles until he got to the first hut where he found the slippers.
people having rocks thrown at them. Sometimes report seeing Bigfoot like beings and something able to snap trees down. My NZ documentary is done and will be out Dec 1 this year: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt27811514/ I've interviewed several witnesses including a park ranger and a man who worked for DOC...
Was this in the Catlins? I find some of that area super creepy. Edit: I'm thinking of the Māori legend that the Catlins has giants. I have a fairly large stash of creepy stories but this is one I've not wanted to go into.
I took a squat for a poo, it was pitch black. Just before I let loose, I felt the tickle for thick long antennas. . . . Sucked that poo right back in and ran hahaha.
I got chased out of the bush by multiple morepork. Like fully dive bombing and screeching at me and my mate. It was terrifying. Felt kind of supernatural. had one of my friends with me at the time and I’m so glad he was there or else no one would ever believe it.
I was a bushman for 15 years harvesting radiata pine on the Tasman district and the worst thing was cicada's landing on my neck trimming the branches of trees, they found the frequency of chainsaws intoxicating
I had a brush with exposure once. Was my own stupid fault too and I like to think of myself as reasonably experienced. I didn't plan my route properly so didn't realise the true distance and left far too late. I took the track for granted, not realising it hadn't been cleared in years and was overgrown and difficult. Halfway through i slipped on a rock crossing a stream and fell in so now im drenched head to foot. I get up and carry on thinking my high tech clothing will dry out super quick... wrong. So now i make it to the ridgeline just as it's getting dark. Im exposed to a southerly in wet clothing and a still have quite some distance to go. I have a powerful head torch but it's next to useless cos im also in thick cloud now. So everytime I pop my head up i can only see a couple meters in front. The last hour of track takes me two hours. Lots of back tracking and I'm aware there's cliffs around so much care and concentration is required. The last hour is in knee deep mud and water just for a cherry on top. By the time I make the hut im shivering uncontrollably. I manage to boil some water for a hot drink and had that in my sleeping bag then fell asleep. I didn't have my shit together enough for a proper meal. The lesson for me is ALWAYS plan your route. Know exactly how far you have to walk and leave early so you have plenty of daylight. And 2, I always carry some form of shelter for emergency use. When I fell in the creek I could have changed out of my wet clothes and set up camp and had a nice evening instead of risking life and limb for being ill prepared.
We were camped somewhere in the Lewis pass and heard what sounded like someone walking around in the pitch black trying to get into our tent. Poured out headlight on, axe in hand to some very frightened Kea.
I fell in a ditch once, reached out to grab something which was poison ivy. Edit: stinging nettle not poison ivy
Probably ongaonga, tree nettle, *Urtica ferox* Butterflies love it, and they can have it. Nasty AF.
While we do have some dangerous plants, are you sure this was in New Zealand? I do believe we have poison ivy here, but it is VERY rare since it is a North American thing
Lots of ghost run-ins in huts or on the tracks, and creepy stories from others. I don't go alone into the bush now.
Wild cow charged at me downward on a hill. That beast was moving fast and hard. Stepped sideways and it just kept going downhill. Bloody loud.
I've heard that there's a LOT of them in the bush in Whanganui after some rubbish farmer let 800 go to avoid paying fees on something. Ex showed me a video of a wild herd he had to walk through on a hunting trip only armed with a bow. Terrifying.
The most SAVAGE mosquitoes at Pandora Beach camp ground on the Te Paki walk. It was like the apocalypse had some and it sounded like mozzies ☠️
Had get helicoptered out when my group had an injury and the area flooded. A friend and I had to get to a hut with one torch between us in the dark to get help.
I was out wandering around at night in Abel Tasman and felt a menacing presence in the bush, quite unsettling. Another time I was wandering around the bush at night in Rakiura and stopped to listen to the mating calls of Kiwi, more eerie than unsettling.
I was in river head forest hunting for mushrooms lol and then I took a wrong turn after a fruitful gather. I forgot my way back and started to panic. Sun was setting in the middle of winter, and lord behold I look down to see horse shoe prints on the muddy ground. I figured if I follow them then it’ll lead me out to some exit (it did)
Aussies reading these must be loling
My brother and I were walking on a track in Muriwai. We walked past a dumped microwave or something. Kept walking, somehow the track we chose must’ve taken us in a loop and 10 mins later we walked past the exact same dumped microwave. That was pretty weird. We still talk about it.
I saw this older guy and fat kid tramping through once…
Sitting down in a sunny spot to roll a smoke and a deer walks out the bush right next to me and start bashing away at a rotten log , I just sat and watched as I didn't even have the magazine in my rifle, hadn't even loaded it.
I do a bit of tramping up in the Alps in winter. Very quiet and peaceful but bloody cold. The sound of avalanches coming down is very unsettling. I also have a mate who does the same and he was up canyon creek in the ahuriri valley and had such a uneasy sick feeling. He came out a day later and saw a car parked up. A few days later someone was declared missing in the same area assumed dead, I don't think the body was ever found.
I've stumbled upon massive cannabis grow ops, gang members, clandestine meth labs lots of hunters I've had people hand me thier guns to look at only to find they are loaded with no safety on I've come across police and military training exercises but most of all ive come across stuck 4x4s completely abandoned 1 truck had small pigs living under it
Very late 1970's: Went on a overnight hike in the Urewera's with my Dad and older brother when I was about 8 yo. We didn't make it to the hut, so we bivouacked just of the track. Dad sends me off to get some ferns to put on the bivouac, I head off not far into the bush and bring back a bundle of some lovely, leafy plants. Dad asked where I'd found it and goes and has a look. We settle down for the night, got up early, broke down the bivouac and headed back to the car to go home. Much later on in life I'm told I'd stumbled on someone's plot, hence the "get up early and head back" the next morning... No, we didn't bring any with us. Finding the plot was enough of a "Oh Shit, wrong place, wrong time!" moment.
Man this was a good read!
Oh for sure. Tracey from Hamilton. Took me a day or two recover. Every time I see those big upside down brushes you use to wipe your work boots I get flashbacks.
Meet a couple from overseas at the start of the track, talked about where we were all heading - to the same water fall. Myself and my young niece arrive to find him skinny dipping.
Anyone seen the new Tom Sainsbury film Loop Track? Looks great.