Rather than walk up to the lakehead and back we opted to take a water taxi to the lakehead and walk back to St. Arnaud. Hamish, the water taxi driver, told us that the cloud formation in the photo below indicates that there are 3 days of rain ahead.
We had a choice of being dropped off on either side of the river that enters the lake through the flat area in the foreground of the photo below. As there is no bridge, we opted for the East side of lake, to avoid getting wet feet.
After Hamish dropped us off and left, it felt like it was just us, the ducks and the black swans, but as we stepped off the dock onto the trail we met a young woman jogging up the trail. Oh well, we didn't have the place to ourselves, but it was still beautiful.
As I said, there is no bridge at the lakehead, so what do you do if the river is in flood? You walk an hour and a half upstream to a swing bridge and an hour and a half back down the other side. On either side of the river mouth there is a tramping hut - the Lakehead hut on the East side and the Coldwater hut on the West side. When the river is low, it is a 2 Km walk, (with wet feet) between the huts, but if the river is high you have a 10 Km walk between the huts,
From the lakehad you can access a series of trails that take you all over the surrounding mountains. Althouth it was in the opposite direction to our destination (St. Arnaud), being nosy we walked up to the Lakehead hut to take a look. Almost to the hut we came across a nice camping area under the trees.
At the hut we met two young guys, one from Germany and one from Switzerland. They told us that there had only been 4 people at this hut the previous night, but at the hut they stayed at the night before, that hut was full. So the trails / huts are obviously very popular. There is no electricity at Lakead hut, but there is a kichen area with a sink and counter, a wood-burning stove to cook on, and two sets of bunks, with matresses supplied, that would sleep 28 people. The matresses lie side by side on the base, so you could have 7 people sleeping side by side on each top and bottom bunk....communal living at its best!
After promoting Canada to our two new European friends, we set off toward St. Arnaud. The walk follows fairly close to the lake shore, so there is not a lot of elevation variation, and is through native forest, which is predominately beech trees - the black trees in the photo below.
The forest was alive with birdsong, and the Bellbird was particularly plentiful. We came across one little bird, species unknown, who was not afraid to come within a few feet of us.
Friendly-Bird, Species Unknown
There were many peaceful little bays off the trail, and it was in one of these that we stopped for lunch. The water was crystal clear, but despite the warm day we were not too keen to have a dip - the water is a coolish 19 degrees celsius, and we had seen the size of some of those native eels on our visit here last week. But the cheese and marmite sandwiches tasted really good.
Nearer St. Arnaud we managed to see a Bellbird fairly close to us. He is not the prettiest of birds, but one of the sweetest sounding.
We made it back to St. Arnaud about 2:30 pm and then endured an hour and a half drive home without air conditioning. The drive was more tiring than the hike.
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