Distance: 8.5 km (3.0 DOC hours) - Benched track - Easy-moderate terrain
Altitude: 48m to 164m. Gain: 146m. Loss: 238m . Gradient: 3 deg (Gentle)
Skills:

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

None (difficulty: 1/6)
No unbridged river crossings

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

The West Coast Cycleway is being routed along the old water race track, much improvement work carried out to ease the route. A broad, hard surface of bright white gravel cuts through the forest beside the reinstated hydro water race. Each small creek and been bridged, each dip filled with cuttings – so that the cyclists can cruise by with ease. Ward Road marks the end of the new trail (2017). Beyond, a damp litter of leaves cover the narrow dirt track as it winds along the valleyside, shaded beneath the tall canopy. The new water race gives up on it’s old route, enters a modern tunnel in the hillside. The track persists for a while beside the old overgrown cutting, before that too fades, lost into the shifting hillside.

We emerge from forest onto a 4WD track. The water race emerges from it’s tunnel, runs straight, narrow through a new concrete bed, through silt traps to the head of the new hydro scheme. We drop to Kennedy Creek through weedy regenerating scrub, exiting onto the Lake Kaniere Road just west of the Kennedy Creek bridge.

Note: Described in the reverse direction to your journey

No description