Child friendly rating: 3 stars

Distance: 9.5km

Signposted time: 3 hours

Bookings Required? No

Suitable in Winter? Generally no

Camping Available? Plenty

4wd required? No

Parking:

Park along Double Hill Run Road just past Glenrock. There is a DOC sign and parking space just on the side of the road on the grass.

On the way to the carpark there are 4 fords to cross. 2wd cars will be fine as long as they're not super low and there hasn't been a huge amount of rain.

The Track:

The first just under 2km follows the Glenrock Stream along farmland. There are a few styles to climb over, or you can use the horse gates. It's a gradual climb but you almost won't notice the elevation change. The track is mostly only one person wide.

After this the Glenrock Stream needs to be crossed twice. If not carrying kids you can run across and mainly keep feet dry, but if carrying kids, you will get wet feet.

After the stream crossings, you join onto an old 4WD road which is then followed the rest of the way to the hut. This means that the track gradient isn't too bad, and there are no technical sections.

The track does climb up a decent amount though, from 450m at the carpark to almost 1200 after the saddle. It is just a slow continual slog uphill.

You'll spend around 5km after the stream crossings heading uphill, including a section with 8 switchbacks. But once you're at the top there is a relatively flat section, and then you'll spot the hut long drop.

It's still another 2km downhill after you can see the long drop, but being downhill on an easy track it's faster than it looks.

500m before the hut there is one last river crossing. It's not a wide one, but is deep with slippery rocks. It was up to my knees (Though I am short).

After the river crossing it's an easy flat 500m to the hut.

It took us 4 hours 10 minutes there and 3 hours 40 minutes back with an experienced 4 & 9 year old walking the whole way and a 21 month old carried the whole way.

Hut:

The hut is very basic, but pretty warm. One of the beds feels thinner than the others with the slanting wall, so not the best for co-sleeping. You would have space to pop two mattresses on the floor next to each other, but then there would be no space to move in the hut. We had our oldest sleeping on the bed with the slanted wall, and I coslept with the baby on the bottom bunk while hubby coslept with the preschooler on the top bunk.

There is a creek that runs along nearby and plenty of camping spots.

Recommendations:

While not technical, the walk is quite long for little kids. It is also exposed the whole way (except for the first kilometre) which means on a hot day there's nowhere to shelter, and on a cold windy day it's freezing.

It's therefore a better one to do in Spring or Autumn if conditions allow than in the height of summer. Also better for kids approx 6yo+ as if conditions change they won't get as cold as younger kids.