“Common sense vanished, and he kissed her. She tasted like wild strawberries, as fresh and luscious as the springtime.”
Have you ever had the delightful and mouth-watering pleasure of tasting a wild strawberry? How about the guilty pleasure of eating a whole handful, with their juices exploding in a burst of flavour and sweetness in your mouth?
Delicious and bursting with flavour
Tiny and rare and hard to find, which makes the experience even more to be savoured. Wholesome and good, yet decadent.
These are not the frankenfood supermarket variety. You can’t buy anything like this in the store…heck, not even at a farmer’s market. Compared to those enormous mutants which are cultivated with the use of pesticides and chemicals, these tiny morsels are microscopic in size, but the intensity of flavour is a thousand times as big. When bitten, they are full of juice which runs down your lips and tastes like the wild, uncontrolled, unadulturated earth from whence they came.
Caught red-handed!
Wild strawberries are the most intense, sweet, flavourful food I’ve ever tasted. We took our annual hike out to the strawberry patch in the mountains yesterday and weren’t disappointed.
We uncovered these incredible taste treats last year when we were hiking to Commonwealth lake and made this remarkable discovery. The crop has been excellent both last year and this year.
The largest patch of wild strawberries I’ve ever encountered
Picking wild strawberries can be dangerous, which of course only adds to the excitement. It’s easy to lose yourself in the experience but try to remain aware of your surroundings – there was some bear scat on the trail. Other hikers also mentioned that a sow and cub had been seen at Mt Shark trailhead earlier in the day.
I know it’s risky to share this secret location, but I would rather that everyone get an opportunity to sample these delectable morsels. Furthermore, the patch is huge – it probably spans a distance of 300 metres along the trail. Enough for everyone.
Wild strawberries grow close to the ground
To find the trailhead, turn at Mt. Engadine Lodge on the Spray Lakes road. As you go up the Mt Shark road, in about 1K you’ll come to a turn-off on your left. Take it. The parking lot is about 100m in.
Commonwealth Lake trail
The strawberry patch starts approximately 2K from the trailhead, soon after crossing Tryst creek(the largest of about five small creeks along the trail). You will also have passed the cairn which marks the turn-off to the Tryst lake trail at 1.8K. As you hike, you’ll see a few very small patches along the way, but stick it out until you reach the piéce de resistance…..and be prepared to have your taste buds transported to another level altogether.
The photo gallery contains pictures from both this year and last year.
We met two groups of hikers on the trail yesterday – both had attempted to find Commonwealth lake and ended up going to Smuts pass! Same thing happened to us the first time we attempted the hike. We finally ferreted out the correct trail and made it there earlier this summer. I’ve posted a few photos in the gallery. It’s one of the most vividly green lakes I’ve ever seen.
