Mum wasn’t clear on how to get to Cooper’s Knob for the mountain dog challenge, so one day when we needed to be in town we went on a scouting mission.

There was a lot of muttering in the car, because Mum found the directions on the DoC website a little vague. We eventually parked at Gibraltar Rock car park and nosed around, looking for the start of the tracks up there.

We ended up walking down the road, and found a track just before the cattle grid. Not knowing if this was the right track we had to head up along it too. It was a nice walk through forest. Then an open track with Cooper’s Knob ahead of us.

We went through another forest section. There was a path up a gully heading off to the right. I started up that confidently, but Mum called me back.

We carried along the main path and eventually came out of the trees again. We could Cooper’s Knob behind us, but the path carried on in the other direction. Mum wasn’t impressed. We backtracked to find a path up that we might’ve missed.

What do you know - we reached the top by following my route up the gully. It was a bit of a climb up the gully and again on the last section to get to the trig beacon on the knob - but scouting mission accomplished. A route our team could follow up to Cooper’s Knob for the mountain dog challenge.

I was rewarded with dinner al fresco with these views (below) before our drive home. Not a bad day’s scouting.