Deep Stream, Lake Aviemore 9 June 2019

Six of us met in Oamaru and headed for Lake Aviemore with a fine weather forecast for the day. As we crossed the Aviemore Dam the lake was quite rough with plenty of whitecaps. We pulled up at the car park at deep stream and met another one of our members there. The wind was a cold westerly coming down the lake, so it was on with all our warm gear before we headed off, but it was soon off with all the warm gear once we started the walk because we had shelter from the wind.
Deep Stream is a public walkway that follows around the side of a small Lake that Deep Steam flows into. The track is about 2km long and has a couple of picnic spots along the way, but the track is getting a bit rough near the top end of the track.
We had permission from the farmer to carry on up the stream, so after crossing the stream with wet feet the gorge opens up into a big valley. We followed a 4WD track up the valley for about 3 km till the stream goes into a bit of another gorge.
We then climbed high out of the valley to the east trying to find the best path through the scrub and matagouri to meet up with a wee valley that meets the stream from the east. It was in this valley that we had seen heaps of Wallabies about 4 yrs ago when we last did this walk, but there was none to be seen this time.
On the saddle at the head of the valley we had lunch looking down on Lake Waitaki and the mountains beyond. After lunch we dropped down into a wee gut and back up onto a 4WD, where we did see one Wallaby. We then followed the 4WD track down pass some remains of an old building and out pass the fisherman’s bend camping area.
Back down at the camp it was back into the cold wind, so it was back on with the warn gear, but as we got up to the dam the wind changed to a warm NW. It was soon back to the cars after a 5 ½ hour hike and about 15km all up.
Thanks – Julian, John, Marian, Robbie, Shirley and Bill F for the great company for the day. Neville