Shanti reports…

We missed out on a walk last week. Mirjam had to work, so Scruff couldn’t join us, and then I got stung by a bee and Mum thought it was best to cancel (even though I was fine once I got past having to lick my paw non-stop)… so I was pleased we had an outing this weekend.

It’s been super hot here with days into the 30s. Sunday was the coolest weekend day so we chose Sunday and Mum found an easy track that looked like it offered lots of shade and several river stops - and yes, it did.

We started at the main Cragieburn car park at Mistletoe Flats and headed up Sidle 73, then along a short road section to the start of the Coal Pit Spur track. Adding Sidle 73 bumped our distance from about 8.5km to just over 12km. The Coal Pit Spur track started out in the open, but it wasn’t long before we had the shade of trees for protection from the hot sun.

It is a pretty track that follows the Highway with a bit of meandering off course (relative to the Highway) and two smallish hills to climb up and down. Our humans didn’t like the occaisional traffic noise and Mum wasn’t impressed with the pylons either - but Scruff and I didn’t mind at all. It is really pretty and we love being out on the trails.

We got to the car park at the end of the track, had lunch under the trees, and headed back the way we came. There were open patches in the sun, but they weren’t too long, and there was plenty of river water for dogs.

Mum is going packrafting in two weeks. Her preferred Aarn Mountain Magic is only a 42 litre and not big enough for what she needs. She tried training with her old Black Diamond backpack, but found it very hard to use after an Aarn pack… so we went shopping on Friday and Mum tested her new Aarn Effortless Rhythm pack today and couldn’t stop telling everyone about how much nicer it was (than a non-Aarn pack) - although we all already knew that…