Two Invercargill hunters who were rescued from the Glaisnock Valley near Te Anau last week were airlifted out of bush the next day after having returned across the lake to collect their boat.
Having been rescued from the area after activating a beacon and treated for hypothermia in the Te Anau Medical Centre on Tuesday last week, the pair, a 47-year-old and a 37-year-old neglected to take the beacon back out with them last Wednesday, a Te Anau police spokeswoman said.
She said they also did not have their packs or any provisions - a dangerous mistake in poor weather conditions.
She said any experienced person would know to take equipment in to "that type of country" in case they were unable to return the same day.
The alarm was raised by the men's partners at 8am on Wednesday after they had failed to report back to them the previous night. A local man who had taken the pair across the lake to retrieve the boat also had concerns.
A search was made for their vehicle, but at 1pm a decision was made to send a Southern Lakes rescue helicopter across to where the men had been left to find them.
From there they were found "pretty quickly".
However, the boat the hunters had gone to retrieve had engine problems and had to be left behind again.
