Distance: 13.7 km (5.0 DOC hours) - Benched track - Easy-moderate terrain
Altitude: 51m to 673m. Gain: 319m. Loss: 881m . Gradient: 5 deg (Gentle)
Skills: - Streams (2/6)

Benched track (3/9)
Benched, maintained, marked tramping track or pack-track

Primary, mapped (1/5)
Formal route, on maps, principal access to hut or along range / catchment

Gentle (difficulty: 2/5)
Gentle slopes

Easy-moderate (difficulty: 2/5)
Tussock / river-gravel / open bush / cut track

None (difficulty: 1/7)
No alpine skills required

Streams (difficulty: 2/6)
Small streams, danger only in extreme weather

None (difficulty: 1/7)
No alpine skills required

No description

Note: Described in the reverse direction to your journey

From Coppermine Creek Hut, a 4wd track recrosses the creek (fine in most conditions) and heads past a private hut across farmland and into kahikatea-dominated bush. On finally reaching the base of the hills after 2km, it swings east and starts to climb sidling the hill face. This is a former roadbed - now a benched track, and as such is gentle gradient, cut into the hillside, winding in and out of sidecreeks.

At Robinson Creek a huge washout has removed the former benched road, and a now rough track drops to the valley floor, crosses the shingle expanse to the northern bank, and zigzags steeply back to the former line of the road. The creek is crossable in normal flows, but can become impassible after heave rain,

Maori Saddle Hut lies just beyond Maori Saddle - the highpoint of the former road.