Supplied/Supplied
Enjoying an ice cream at the Fiordland Winter Wapiti Weekend Celebrations in Te Anau are the Burgess’ sisters, from left, Peyton, 7, and Ria, 9.
More than 2400 people passed through the doors at the Te Anau Event Centre during the Winter Wapiti Weekend Celebrations.
The weekend was held to celebrate 100 years since the first Wapiti Bull was legally shot at Lake Katherine in the Fiordland National Park, and to showcase what Te Anau had to offer in the middle of winter.
Ballot Coordinator for the annual Wapiti Bugle, or ‘The Roar’, Roger Foote said they were delighted with the weekend considering the weather forecast wasn’t looking favourable.
“We had four showings of the movie ‘Beyond the Odds’ on Friday night, plus several more during the weekend,” Mr Foote said
READ MORE:
* Celebrating 100 years since the first Wapiti bull was legally shot in Fiordland
* Exciting festival lineup in Te Anau to mark Waitangi Day 2023
* Hankinson Hut, Fiordland National Park: A journey to one of the most remote corners of New Zealand
A documentary about the Fiordland Wapiti Foundation, it showed the work carried out by their volunteer team and their ongoing conservation projects.
“We have received really nice, positive feedback from many stallholders,” Foote said, adding that the weekend celebrations had done its job in promoting the Fiordland Wapiti Foundation.”
Supplied/Supplied
A stall holder at the Winter Wapiti Weekend, NZ Conservation Services Limited from Winton was represented by, from left, Andy Chrystall, Levi Haliday and Toby Haliday.
During the months of March/April each year, the time of ‘The Roar’,more than 2,000 hunters go into the Fiordland Wapiti Blocks.
“Over that six-week period we have hunters from all over the world, who were successful in the ballot the previous year, obtaining a Fiordland block to go hunting in,” Mr Foote said.
The Fiordland Wapiti Bugle ballots open up online from August and were drawn in October each year.
Degree43 premium Hot Tubs Sales Manager Lisa Bearne, from Christchurch, who ran a stall, said there was a great turn out of good quality people even in the atrocious weather conditions.
Supplied/Supplied
Degree43 Premium Hot Tubs personnel ran a stall: from left, Aaron Loader from Te Anau, Lisa Bearne from Christchurch, Aleisha Drake and Keenan Drake from Invercargill.
“It’s been well worth the eight-hour drive to get here from Christchurch, and we would definitely be back if they held another one,” Bearne said.
The Fiordland Winter Wapiti Foundation would meet to decide if they would make the weekend an annual event.
“It’s more than likely that we will hold another Fiordland Winter Wapiti Weekend again sometime in the future,” Foote said.
