Paolo is an Italian who works in Taiwan. He had booked in for 24 hours to go out for a pig hunt. The timing could not have been worse as we had two feet of snow on the ground around the hut. At night in the hut Paolo showed me some of his many gadgets. It was good to see how his go pro camera works through wi fi from his cell phone and how he could change all of the settings. Next we looked at some of the apps on his computer of how to dis assemble and re assemble an SKS rifle. Then we looked at some very good footage of trapping pigs, in one scene a large boar jumped over an eight foot tall fence.
Next morning the pressure was on to try and catch a pig before 3 pm. In places the snow was up to one meter deep on the side of the road and we could not find any pig sign any where. As we where running out of time Paolo said another 30 minutes then we will have to start heading back. Luckily the dogs picked up on a pig and tracked up the hill, it was Lightning that got onto the pig first only a couple of hundred meters off the track. With the pig dead and gutted a was going to carry it out but Paolo was having none of that as he wanted to carry this pig out himself.
He put in a good effort and got the pig out to the road in one carry while loosing a bit of sweat. Back at the hut the pig weighed 122 pounds. Paolo did not have much spare time to enjoy the thrill of catching his first pig as he had to head out to Christchurch.