Lake Christabel

Activity Date: 18 Nov 2023
Updated: 2 Dec 2024
People: Finn, Tim H, Korra 🐕, Ted 🐕

Day 1: Lake Christabel Hut

Tim and I set out from Christchurch pretty promptly with two dogs in tow: Korra and Ted. Korra gets overstimulated in the car and I have not yet figured out how to calm her down, so Tim did very well during his first long car trip with her. Lots of panting, drooling and yelping at cars through the window.

There isn’t much of a car park at the trailhead but I managed to partially park under some trees – not that it made much difference in the end. Dogs leashed up, and our entirely too heavy packs on our backs, we set off. Neither of us had done much tramping in recent months, and it was my first trip since heart surgery about 6 months prior so we were feeling a little apprehensive about it. Committed but apprehensive.

The track was all quite well-formed (if overgrown) except for a couple of points when you cross some unnamed tributaries to the Blue Grey River. Hunt around and you will find it again! There was only three challenging (for humans) sections:

1. A tree had fallen down, the track that sidles past the river a little challenging to traverse.
2. A landslide had taken out some of the track and also caused a very large tree to fall across the track. We managed to clamber over, although Ted did slip on the trunk and go for a bit of a slide down the hill!
3. Lastly, there is a well-known tree down across the track alongside Lake Christabel. There is a rather small gap to climb through and it required taking off our packs and pushing them through.

We were pretty knackered at the end of this day, although not as tired as Ted who fell asleep on his mat with his paws over his face. What a good dog.

Day 2: Out

Having realised we didn’t really communicate our packing, we made breakfast with separate cookers and coffee with separate Aeropresses. Whoops. Feeling a little worse for wear in the hips, shoulders and definitely feet, we trudged back to the car the way we came. The whole loop around and down the Robinson River is supposed to be a pretty awesome trip, but we didn’t have the fitness, time, or the dogs that would find a walkwire acceptable. One day..

The weather was pretty ideal both days, plenty of sunshine, but also plenty of lush forest cover so we didn’t spend too many hours in direct sunlight. We got back to the car not much faster than we walked the day before. I’m not sure if that says the most about our fitness or the track. The dogs were pretty tired when we got back to the car but unfortunately, Korra being Korra didn’t settle the entire drive home. Instead, she opted to pant on Tim’s shoulder which I’m sure was incredibly plesant.

Overall, it was a great trip and I’m looking forward to going back to the area for some more dog friendly hiking in the future!p