Sunday was forecast to be a 36 degree scorcher, making Saturday the best day for my last training walk for packrafting… and time to see how all the gear fitted (or didn’t) into, or onto, my new Aarn pack.

I confess that I had visions of some paddle practice too. Conditions were ideal when we arrived, but I’d promised everyone a walk - and needed the pack training - so I consoled myself with the idea that we could paddle at the end. The wind (and swamp adventure) blew a large raspberry at that idea.

We skirted around Lake Emma and the breeze picked up. Not unpleasant for a summer’s day… but paddling… yeah, nah!

We followed the poled route towards Lake Camp and decided to lunch and turn at the style (lots of shrieking and motorboats at the Lake - and it wasn’t a dog-friendly zone).

I’d been looking at a few routes up Mt Harper (just behind the hut in the above photo) for an autumn or early winter off-route trip and had seen a shorter route back to the car on the near side of the lake. It showed as a clear path on my GPS.

Should we, I asked? It will definitely mean wet feet…?

We decided to give it a go. [Cue music from “Jaws” here.]

It is probably the last time Liz will ever let me suggest a short cut or alternative route. We couldn’t find the official start of the “track” but the first couple of 100m went well enough. The grass got taller and ground got boggier. Soon the dogs were lost in a sea of green and appeared briefly as they bounded gamely on, into thicker, swampier, stinkier muddy ground.

The route out was 10km. Discounting time for taking photos and looking at the historic Lake Emma Hut, it probably took us just over 2 hours. The route back was 5km. It took us two hours.

Walking through knee-deep swamp mud is HARD WORK. Very hard, arduous and slow work - especially when carrying a packraft, paddle, throw bag and two PFDs. I have no idea how I would have managed without walking poles, but we did get back to the car in the end.

We also learnt a new trick. If you step on the long grass to flatten it forward underfoot the grass creates a sort of bridge and you’re less likely to sink into the mud below. If only I’d known that at the start of the swamp adventure!

Universal justice prevailed quite nicely for Liz, too. After she crossed a deep muddy water patch she looked back and saw a “bridge”. (Read: good condition plank stretching from muddy bank to muddy bank across the deep water.)

I detoured and crossed the bridge and promptly stepped off into over knee-deep mud, and was all but stuck. I had visions of spending the night in the mud until I worked out I could crawl (there’s a packraft and gear in my pack remember) onto the nearby grass.

We were all pretty knackered after successfully evading the swamp monsters, and I was feeling pretty guilty for leading our group astray. I mentioned the swamp on the mountain dog challenge group page as “it’s an experience but not one I’d recommend” - just in case someone else was fooled by the supposed route (there are stick markers and swamp bridges dotted in the middle of swampland nowhere, so it is walked). I felt a little less discouraged when I discovered at least two other people from the group had navigated the swamp.

It’s firmly on our combined Never Again lists - and we had a good laugh at out folly!