This article was first published in the Tararua Tramper Volume 79 No. 10, November 2007
Roaring Stag Lodge and Lost Lake
29-30 September 2007
Map S25
Vicki Wogan's party of 12 assembled at the Mount Bruce Café(approve sites) on the Saturday morning to caffeine and carbo load for this Easy Medium trip in to the newish Roaring Stag Lodge. The DOC sign at the end of Putara Rd indicated a 4 hour walk, and that’s about what it took us.
After setting off at about 10.45, we had lunch at the Roaring Stag/Herepai track junction, a rather breezy spot on top of the ridge, but a convenient place to stop. On the way up we’d overtaken a party of boy scouts and their minders, also on their way to Roaring Stag. Another party were heading for Herepai Hut - it was obviously going to be a busy weekend in this reasonably accessible area. Once we headed down the hill we were more sheltered from the northerly, and we arrived at the hut with plenty of time to sit around in the sun, eat nibbles, and prepare our meal. We let the scouts from Palmerston North have the top bunk (and a very well behaved lot they were, too), while we took over the bottom one. Robin Chesterfield’s party of three arrived from Herepai, and slept on the floor. Others slept in tents or on the verandah, and despite there being 25 people in all, it never seemed crowded – the scouts cooked for themselves outside. We put our watches forward an hour, and decided to adjust our Sunday departure time to allow for the daylight saving change.
The weather remained fine, if a bit windy, the next day. Mark Casey had been to Lost Lake once before, so stayed behind and did a splendid job of helping tidy the hut. The rest of us headed up the Ruamahanga, past the Forks, crossing the river several times, to hunt for Lost Lake. The lake is not difficult to find – there are distinctive rusty orange streaks on the bank to help locate it. We however had gone inland to avoid the last small rock outcrop, so we meandered through the manuka for a while until we glimpsed water in a depression: the lake with its island and resident paradise ducks. After admiring the lake, we went back down the river, ate some food, packed up and headed back out the way we’d come. We were all back out at the road by 3.30 after a very pleasant weekend.
- Party members
- Gloria Abraham, Barbara Camfield, Mark Casey, Vivienne Healey, Dianne Hill (scribe), David Holland, Richard Howell, Nora Hutson, Ray Markham, Bev Middleton, Peter Tunnicliffe, Vicki Wogan (leader).