Shanti reports…

Our first proper tramping trip since lockdown. Woo hoo! Mum said we were going to Lake Emma. I quite liked our last trip so I was looking forward to getting out there. I was SURE Mum wouldn’t want to repeat the swamp walk, so this should be safe fun!

We picked up Scruff and his Mum, Mirjam and headed out to the Hakatere Conservation Area. Instead of parking at the lake entrance like we did last time Mum decided to see if she could drive to the hut to save time. Save time for what I wondered… Hmmm… I would soon find out.

We parked at the old Lake Emma hut. Mum was a bit amused at campers there in full-on animal onesies, but we were soon on our way. There was obviously a mission ahead.

We walked along the edge of the lake, and then turned up near the Balmacaan Stream to head up the valley. Ah, this was a different mission! The route description was vague. It said to walk up next to the river and then branch out - with dire warnings not to do so too soon. The matagouri had a nasty reputation of scratching unsupecting walkers.

Mum picked a shortcut line to the river… and we met the matagouri. There were walls of it. They were like soliders in formation armed with spears and lances. We tried to climb higher to get above the worst of them, which required a change in navigation strategy. Up a ridge, instead of up along the river.

It turned out that the matagouri were not alone. The had reinforcements known as spikey Spaniards. The Spaniards spears were sharper and nastier - but on the plus side, they were marginally easier to avoid.

The frost morning, which registered minus 3 on arrival, warmed to a fairly hot winter day - at least when tramping uphill in full sun. Our progress was slow through the nasty bushes, and then slow up a very steep ridge.

Mum was sort of hoping that the top of this slope would bring us out to Mt Harper - but that wasn’t to be. We were only at 1500m and Mt Harper was another 350m higher - which we found out when we finally gained the ridge.

Fortified by lunch our humans calucalted that it would probably take another two hours to get to the top of Mt Harper, which meant there wasn’t enough daylight to walk there and back to the car. We were all already dreading fighting the plants on the way down - so the decision was made to turn.

Our humans considered whether to try descending via the river to see if that was easier, but finally decided that the devils we knew were better than ones we didn’t know about, so we returned by much the same route - but we were smart enough to pick a better path for the worst patches of spikey plants we encoutered and emerged largely without additional battle wounds for our descent.

It wasn’t too long before we were safely on the path around the lake and then back at the hut with time for a stick throw and swim for the dogs and a cup of coffee for the humans.

The drive out from the lake was a bit hairy with Mum struggling with sun strike as the sun set. Our humans thought it was a special trip, with absolutely nobody else about (except at the hut) - although Mum was disappointed not to look down on the Rangitata River from Mt Harper. But we should be wiser for next time. Definitely a summer trip with more daylight or an overnighter.

It was great to get back out there!