When starting this journey, I have referred to a few peaks as being my ‘safety net’. Ones that I can do rain, hail or shine. Nice straight forward ones close to home to tick off should I get behind schedule or get cabin fever. Mt Oxford (1,364m) is one of them.
The weather lately had been crap and with me missing last weekend I wanted to get out. Especially coming into Christmas.
I thought it be time to use one of my ‘safety net’ peaks. With the weather forecast looking poor again I packed trusty rain jacket. Put the dog in the car and headed for the hills.
It was a gale force nor-wester day making driving out difficult. As is the case with strong nor-westers, there was some decent spill-over from the mountains dropping rain along the foothills.
After parking strategically away from swaying trees, Charlie and I powered up along the trail. There were strong winds but fortunately no rain, as of yet.
As we crept over the 600m elevation the skies started to open up. I thought it be a good move to stop for a feed and put on my jacket before we broke out of the treeline.
Charlie was having the time of his life. Off lead walking through the forest taking in all the sights and smells that came with it!
The higher we climbed the more it rained. Out in the open tops wasn’t as bad as I expected. Thanks to the winds being so strong, the rain came from the side rather than straight down and into your face. Charlie and I found a bush to huddle behind for a quick breather before we pushed on to the summit.
The summit wasn’t that pleasant to say the least! Photos were taken then we huddled out of the wind behind a rock wall previous hikers had built – thank you!!
After some food for both Charlie and I, we started out descent, making good progress.
It wasn’t long until we were back in the treeline and out of the worst of it.
As mother nature would have it, as we hit the flats 20min from the car, the skies cleared and the sun came out making it rather humid.
To add more adventure to our walk, 5 minutes from the car, Charlie starts shaking one of his hind legs then proceeds to sit down. Me being a little confused encourages him along only for him to repeat the same thing. I have a look at his foot and there is no obvious cuts or thorns in or around his pads / nails. After a break he walks 5 meters before lying down. This is less than ideal and i start running through possible scenarios in my head. I grab Charlie and proceed to carry him out the rest of the way to car. Once back I give his foot a good clean and he is happy to walk on it again albeit for short durations.
As lady luck would have it, we had a vet appointment that afternoon for his yearly shots. I asked the Vet to have a look and after some digging she pulled out a huge bee stinger buried deep within his foot!!
Safe to say our little boy is a hardy fella not even making a noise when it happened or any other time with it still in his foot.
#21 Mt Oxford – 1,364m, 13.3km, 3 hours 23 min
Hopefully time for one more before Christmas!!
Cam.