Routes
Huts / campsites
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DOC Land
Altitude: 530m to 1662m. Gain: 1505m. Loss: 715m . Gradient: 11 deg (Moderate-hard)
Skills: Alpine weather (2/7) - Streams (2/6)
A good tops trip circles round Allan Creek linking the Eyre Mountains at Robert Creek to Kingston. There are many variants, the longest sticking to the tops over Mt Dick. Another option drops into the head of Allen Creek to visit tarns at it's head. The route detailed here is the shortest and visits good campspots near a tarn in the basin below pt1468.
The route starts where the track crosses Ross Creek, 100m north of Robert Creek Hut From the hut follow the track 4WD north over the spur to Ross Creek.
Descend Ross Creek to the forks with Robert Creek. The boundary of public land is just north of Mitchell's Hutm shown on topo maps. I headed 1.5km up Robert Creek on good flats with clear deer trails until the 2nd side-creek on the east. This is the point at which Robert Creek gorges out and travel ceases to be easy on the valley floor.
The spur north of the 2nd creek provided good open travel to the bushedge. The top of the spur becomes scrubby higher up, but climbing in good open beech slightly north of the crest of the spur gave good travel. After brief scattered scrub you are out of open tussock. A long steady climb takes you to the summit of the range where there is a 4WD track.
Follow the range north - the track soon ends at old holding pens. A long gentle climb follows on tussock tops to pt1468. A large basin lies north-east of the peak. I circled round the west side on the ridgeline before dropping into the upper basin on the clear sidespur.
Good dry campspots exist in the sheltered top section of the basin, with water available from a crescent-shaped tarn slightly lower down to the east (not the obvious muddy tarns to the south but a clear blue rocky one atop bluffs on the eastern side).
Hugging the cliffs SE of pt1667 you come onto a knob north of the crescent tarn, from where a good tussock chute drops into the upper reaches of Allen Creek. A steady climb up the far side on snort tussock and rock leads to py1668 on the ridgeline with views over Lake Wakatipu.
Good trails run south down the ridgeline, and the 4WD track soon appears, sidling to the west of the summits, giving the option of sticking to the highpoints or dropping to the track.
South of pt1596 the track returns to the ridgeline, and starts it's long winding descent to the main valley floor 3km south of Kingston. The spur just north of pt1290 provides an alternative, steep descent directly to the township for those with good navigation skills.