Tony van Raat

Tony van Raat

Backpack MacPherson Creek to Lake Barra

10/07/20

Lake Barra was named after Burt Barra, a bushman who ended up as a kind of hermit on a farm my friend Chris Tait bought in the foothills of the Tararuas in the 70s. Burt told stories of how as a deer culler in the 1920s he discovered an unnamed lake high in the hills above the Haast. We found it on a map - still unnamed - so decided to visit. After a steep climb up from the road we camped, unfurled a sheet we carried with the words ‘Lake Barra’ on it, took a photo and scrambled back down. I then wrote to the Geographic Board proposing that the lake be named after Burt who might have been the first pakeha to ever have seen it. They replied, investigated and considered and it now commemorates Burt who finally died in the Wairarapa in his late 90s. Chris still lives on the farm. It was a great moment.

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