Structural Integrity / Hunt & Gather
Hunt & Gather
A backcountry experience for men who've hit a ceiling they can't explain.
Central Otago, New Zealand
Three days. Country that doesn't care about your title, your workload, your reputation, or the state of your relationship.
There’s a man I know – built his life and career, carries a lot, rarely stops. He came out on Hunt & Gather because something in him knew he needed to get out of his own head and into something real.
On the second day, just before sunset, he shot a red deer.
What followed was two hours of him meeting himself at more edges than he knew he had. This is a man who, by his own admission, doesn’t really like mess. Never loved getting his hands dirty. Could be squeamish…
He was handed a knife and walked through gutting the animal – dry heaved, kept going, and then hoisted roughly 30 kilos of carcass onto his shoulders for the hike back to the hut.
Three kilometres. Dark. Head torches only. Ten river crossings, one brutal hill, wet boots.
Nobody offered to take the deer from him.
Not because they didn’t care. Because every man out there silently understood: this was his. This was the exact thing he needed to carry. Depriving him of it would have been the unkind move.
He made it back. Wet, dripping in blood and guts. Exhausted.
And deeply fucking alive.
Another man on that same trip hadn’t slept – truly slept – in years. Not the way a man sleeps when he feels safe. On the second afternoon, rain came in and we took a break. He lay down on the couch in the hut.
Two hours later, he woke up. First time in his life he’d done that. Not because he tried to rest – because for the first time he couldn’t be anywhere else. His phone couldn’t reach him. His business couldn’t get to him. There was nowhere to be but there.
His biggest moment of the whole trip wasn’t the hunt. It was a nap.
That’s the thing about time like this. You can’t predict what finds you. Sometimes it’s killing a deer. Sometimes it’s being dead asleep
What actually happens out there
You’ll learn to track and shoot, guided by Mark – twenty years hunting this country, six years bringing men into this exact property. You’ll learn how to break down a carcass.
You'll come face-to-face with life and death in a way most men never do anymore. If an animal is taken, it's honoured. Processed, broken down, the meat taken. Nothing wasted. That's not incidental to the experience - it's central to it.
You don’t forget the weight of an animal you’ve taken yourself. Or how good meat tastes when you’ve earned it.
You’ll have time around the fire, time to talk, time to sit in silence that doesn’t feel like emptiness. The kind of connection that happens when you’re tired and dirty and far from your normal life.
And there’ll be moments, different for every man, where something shifts. Where the thing you’ve been holding onto for years finally shows itself.
Every culture before ours sent men out to be tested, then welcomed them back changed. We stopped doing the sending. We never stopped needing it. What it makes is capable men. Whole men. Useful men.
Mike’s there for the rest of it. Bringing you to the edges, and through them. The shit that needs facing, faced.
see it
Who's out there with you
your host
Mike
Mike’s not running the trip. He’s reading the men, the moments.
On that same trip – the one with the deer – one man hadn’t slept properly in years. When conditions changed and the group stopped for a break, Mike could have used the downtime to push, to debrief, to keep things moving the way these men are used to things moving. Instead he let him sleep. Two hours. No agenda. That afternoon turned out to be the most important moment of the whole trip for that man and another – and Mike couldn’t have predicted it. You can’t engineer when the gold shows up. You can only know when to hold, when to push, and when to leave space for it to present itself.
Same trip, different moment: nobody carried that deer out for the man who shot it. Mike made the call early – not because anyone discussed it, but because he could see what was actually being asked for. The hardest part wasn’t available for delegation. It was his to carry.
Fourteen years and three thousand men have taught Mike one thing above all. When to hold. When to push. When to poke at something a man’s avoiding. When to step back and let the moment do what it’s going to do. Reading men, reading the room – that’s the whole job.
your guide
Mark
Mark’s been hunting this country for twenty years – ducks and rabbits with his old man as a kid, red deer and tahr now. He’s brought men into this property for six years, fifteen-odd trips and counting.
“Pure presence,” he calls it – the thing that happens to a man once he’s still enough to actually be there.
He’s watched men hit walls they didn’t know they had, physically and otherwise, and he’s the one who knows when to push through and when to let it sit. One guy who wasn’t even sure he wanted to come ended up doing the whole process himself – shoot, gut, carry, hang, skin, butcher. Then cooked it. Best part of his trip.
Guns mean safety, not danger, when they’re handled right. That’s been drummed into Mark since he was a kid, and it shows in how he runs every part of the hunt – nothing rushed, nothing skipped.
Who this is for
Men who carry responsibility - for businesses, families, teams, people. Men who are good at what they do and know there's more in them but can't access it from inside their normal life. Men searching for something they can't put their finger on.
Need to be a hunter
Need to be fit, or handy with a gun
Need to eat meat
This might terrify you. It might disgust you. That's not a reason to say no. That might be exactly why you need to come.
You do need to be willing to be uncomfortable. To be stretched in ways that spreadsheets, strategy meetings, and just grinding harder can't stretch you. And to show up without your usual armour and strategies.
the details
Each experience is strictly for four men. Small enough to go deep, tight enough to build real connection.
2026 dates
Friday Sep 25th (early morning) - Sunday Sep 27th (late arvo).
(Can't make this one? See below for future dates.)
Get yourself to Queenstown by Thursday evening so we can leave first thing Friday morning. We'll have you back at the airport by 6pm Sunday.
Included
Accommodation in the hunting hut, all food and meals, access to firearms, Mark and Mike with you the whole way. Month-long prep and safety training.
Your costs
Travel to and from Queenstown. Accommodation on either side if needed. A gear list will be sent in advance - some items you'll need to bring, some we provide.
Every participant signs a standard safety waiver before the trip - we'll send it through with your gear list.
Preparation
In the two months before the trip, we'll connect as a group a handful of times - some logistics, some preparation, some getting clear on what you want from the experience. A light commitment, but it matters.
The investment
Total cost. $500 commitment deposit, then $5,270. Payment plans available - three monthly instalments of $1,757 following the deposit.
A note on safety
Guns mean safety. This is handled seriously. Mark is a licensed and registered firearms operator and leads all weapons handling. Before we set foot in the bush, every man gets a proper safety briefing, time to actually handle the firearm, and every question answered. No shortcuts.
“For most of history, men were taken somewhere. Tested. Witnessed. Brought through something that marked the line between who they were and who they became. That thread has been largely cut from modern life – and most men feel the absence without being able to name it.
This is one place where that thread gets picked up again.”
— Mike Campbell
One weekend. If this is for you, apply below – Mike reviews every application personally.
Keen but not available for September? Further experiences are planned for late 2026 and into Q1 2027. Apply anyway and let us know your timeframe – we’ll be in touch when the next date is confirmed.
Want to talk it through first? Email Mike directly: mike@mikecampbell.com.au