The main reason for our trip to NZ this year is for Peter to shoot in the NZ Nationals and Grand Prix, both of which are being held at Branch Creek Station just outside Wanaka. Wanaka is situated on the shores of a lake and has stunning mountains all around, some of which have glacial snow on top of them. We're sharing a house with other shooters Vicki Johnstone and Mal Price from Laang and Paul and Wendy Hedwig from Nelson NZ.
Shooting started on Monday with a 100 target event and Peter found the targets too close and. It to his liking. The targets are set over 2 grounds, one on the flat in a dry riverbed and another along a hill over the car park. The weather is quite warm, especially on the hill course and we found that we needed to take lots of water and an umbrella for shade.
The 2nd event over Tuesday and Wednesday was the NZ Nationals and again Peter didn't fare well with close targets. So far his score each day is around 77/100, well below his average.
Each night we enjoy a few drinks with our house mates and they discuss each target! The BBQ is being well used and we're all enjoying ourselves.
On Thursday we had a day off and drove for 45 minutes to the neighbouring town of Bannockburn where we enjoyed a pub lunch sitting in the beer garden. We continued on to Cromwell and enjoyed looking at the historic town down by a dam.
On Friday and Saturday it was back to shooting - the NZ Grand Prix where Peter again had difficulty with the targets on Friday but found them much better on Saturday and managed 84/100 to finish 12th in Seniors.