Distance: 7.6 km (3.0 DOC hours) - Benched track - Easy terrain
Altitude: 517m to 898m. Gain: 200m. Loss: 437m . 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 (difficulty: 1/5)
Grass / prepared surface

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

Mangakahika hut sits a couple of hundred meters of the main drag. A broad graveled track leads west, crossing the river to the Rodgers-Central Te Hoe track. This has been recently recut by dingo, and regravelled (2014) and is a motorway compared to what came before. Although not officially a dual-use track, many visitors cycle it as far as Central Te Hoe – though not beyond.

The benched track climbs, sidling the vallesyside through tall podocarp forest, with verdant fern and epiphytes below, finally running out of space and executing a couple of short zigzags to reach the saddle into the Te Hoe catchment. There follows a similar gentle, sidling descent. On reaching the valleyfloor a large clearing shows evidence of a former hut, and a pleasant campsite – though the creek was dry when I passed. We follow the river down the valley, as it become larger and the valley narrower. In places the track sidles above the river, and in one it has been eroded away and we’re forced to drop into the riverbed for a hundred meters – what hardship! Passing the Upper Te Hoe turnoff, and crossing a rickety wooden swingbridge, the track climbs and sidles again for some 800m before dropping to large, scrubby flats at Central Te Hoe.

Central Te Hoe is a large hut with a massive kitchen / diningroom, and two smaller bunkrooms – a layout almost identical to Rangiwahia in the Ruahines.

Note: Described in the reverse direction to your journey

A well formed track runs north up the valley from Central Te Hoe, crossing the river by swingbridge 300m north of the hut. The turnoff to Upper Te Hoe is passed shortly after, after which the track drops to the river and sidles low on the banks for most of the next 5km. The track is generally of excellent quality - benched, cut and well marked. I a couple of spots it has been washed away by the river and you have to drop to the rocky riverbed for short sections.

Crossing the river (ankle deep in normal flows) it travels in mature podocarp bush on the eastern bank to somewhere near the last forks in the creek - where a clearing holds the remains of an old hut. This would be good camping - but the creek was dry when I passed through.

From here the track climbs steadily, sidling the western valleyside to reach the saddle, before dropping in similar fashion to hit the Mangakahika Creek about 1km north of the saddle at the first forks.

The turnoff to Mangakahika Hut is 500m further north, and signposted. The hut lies 100m to the west of the main track down a benched, gravelled sidetrack.