Deer fear on a high-country ramble

On Mesopotamia Station there's a gorge which plummets from the Sinclair and Brabazon ranges, below the Two Thumbs mountains which are the defining landmarks of the region, down to the Rangitata River flats. Scour Stream runs through the gorge, and alongside it is a rough road called Stag Paddock Track.
In approaching dusk, amid the roaring of dozens of stags - we are there in April - a group of walkers marches forth on the final two-hour stretch of their hike. Maybe we shouldn't be walking the gorge at this time of year. We've been warned that one angry old stag has a penchant for attacking any station vehicle which ventures down the track. But the option of retracing our footsteps back up the hills is not appealing.
We set off with tramping poles at the ready, and my trusty companion hovers near with a rock in each hand. I'm suffering a full-blown case of Deer Fear.
(On an earlier adventure, sailing in French waters, a nervous nature saw me christened The Rainbow Worrier by the foreign crew. I have a reputation for looking ahead with trepidation in challenging situations.) Rocks and sticks, I'm compelled to point out, would be entirely useless against a hormone-charged 200kg stag.
Fellow walkers relive Custer's Last Stand as we trudge onwards, knotted together, surrounded by war parties of deer popping up Indian-style on every vantage point atop the bluffs.
Three thousand deer are farmed in this area. We see herd after herd of flighty animals, with stags old and young roaring their prowess - and our presence.
Silhouetted on cliff tops, leaping fast-flowing ribbons of water, crashing through scrub, stampeding across our path, they are spectacular.
Of course, we make the journey unscathed, live to tell the tale, and are back at Hunters' Cottage at Mesopotamia Station in time for dinner. Over a beer, our slightly-risky walk is elevated to The War of the Stags. We timorous womenfolk were lucky there were men on hand to protect us, so the beer drinkers say.
Samuel Butler, whose memory walks with us on our four-day excursion, didn't have to contend with The Roar back in 1860 when he took up the Mesopotamia run. Deer were introduced to New Zealand in the late 1850s but hadn't reach this far into the high country during Butler's explorations. The writer was here for only three years, doubling his money when he sold the 20,000-plus hectares of titles he had managed to put together.
In that time he wrote much of Erewhon, a satirical novel with a title construed from the word "nowhere", spelt backwards (although not quite. The "w" and the "h" are transposed). In an early chapter, Butler enthuses on "the ineffable purity of the air, the solemn peacefulness of the untrodden region - could there be a more delightful and exhilarating combination?"
Later chapters lean more to the satirical. There is little to locate his book to high country New Zealand as Butler takes the mickey out of Victorian mores and morals in his mythical land of Erewhon.
Names can be confusing in the expanses of high country, mountain ranges and river gorges which are Samuel Butler's "untrodden region". Butler chose the ancient name Mesopotamia - meaning land between rivers - for his station, and name and station continue today. A station across the Rangitata River from Mesopotamia is called Erewhon, named in the 20th century in honour of the book. In Butler's time, this station was called Stronechrubie - which is today the name of a fine restaurant and motel in Mt Somers.
Near Erewhon is Mt Sunday, a stand-alone hill of rock which became the village Edoras in the movie Lord of the Rings. It was so named because shepherds would come down from their mountain stations and meet there for Sunday picnics. Today it's an easy walk, with no trace of either shepherd or movie set.
Large tracts of the land we cover are now part of a major conservation park. Included is the elusive Mystery Lake, a three-to-four hour walk up from Lake Clearwater, at the foot of the Southern Alps. Mystery Lake is named for early trampers who often had difficulty locating it, and would descend tired and disgruntled, doubting the existence of the now trout-filled lake.
Butler wrote in Erewhon: "Exploring is delight-ful to look forward to and back upon, but it is not comfortable at the time, unless it be of such an easy nature as not to deserve the name."
We felt like explorers on this walk, but no doubt old Samuel would consider us not deserving of the name. What we did - walking with a guide and carrying only a day pack - would be a mere stroll in his book.
The Mesopotamia High Country Walk is run by Tuatara Tours. Contact 0800 377 378 www.tuataratours.co.nz