Peak Hill, Lake Coleridge
Peak Hill (1240m) is a medium-length hike between Lake Coleridge (Whakamatau) to the northeast and the Rakaia River to the southwest in Canterbury, South Island. It is around 15 minutes from Lake Coleridge village, a holiday settlement with no shops or gasoline. The town of Methven is around 45 minutes south. I reached it from Castle Hill by the rough Lyndon Road. (Though I proved it can be done with a 2WD car, I don’t recommend it.)
Screenshots of the NZ topographic map are licensed as CC BY 4.0 by Toitū Te Whenua Land Information New Zealand (LINZ).
This out-and-back track can also be turned into a loop hike, as seen on the topomap screenshot. See links describing the loop below the gallery.
Time
DOC says it takes 3 hours return.
Including breaks, it took me around 5 hours 30 minutes.
Route
Round-trip, AllTrails reports 622 meters of elevation gain and a length of 5.6 kilometers.
The road to the trailhead is gravel. My guess is that the gravel starts after Lake Coleridge village.
There is space for a few cars to the right of the road, adjacent to the trailhead. This is followed by an L-shaped walk, first ahead, and then left, across mildly sloping pasture.
The fairly steep climb begins right after the pasture, and doesn’t relent for a few hundred meters. Once it does, the remainder of the hike to the peak is mostly easy walking.
If 1 is an easy track, and 4 is using hands and feet on exposed rocks, I give this hike a 3 in some steep places and a 2 in between those places. I give it a 1 below the hill, and on most of the undulating track approaching the peak.
Looking southwest. Track at left. The pasture does slope down toward the Rakaia River like that, meaning that it’s not just a bad panorama (although it is, also, a bad panorama).
Helicopter flying up the Rakaia Valley. Possibly to Mount Algidus Station.
Its shadow appears on the pasture below, in the final 2 seconds. At first I thought it was a bird.
Northeast toward Lake Coleridge. Far left, Mt Oakden. Left, Wilberforce River. Center-left, Mt Cotton. Poking out behind it to the left, probably Gargarus.
Just right of center, Point 1055. Behind it to the right, Mt Hennah and then the Ryton River. Across the Ryton, Round Hill and then Laings Hill. Far right, Kaka Hill.
Back row at left, Birdwood Range. Back row center-right, Craigieburn Range. Somewhere in there is my traverse over Mt Cloudsley and Mt Enys (the high point at 2194m).
Looking northwest. Rakaia River at left. Behind it, the Palmer Range. Lake Coleridge at right.
Hunting
Most of the route is in a hunting area. Hunters are forbidden to “discharge firearms near tracks, huts, campsites, road-ends or any other public place.” I have hiked in more than 30 hunting areas, and only passed hunters twice - this wasn’t one of those hikes.
Here is the DOC topomap with all hunting areas visible.
Other pages about this hike
https://www.theoutbound.com/new-zealand/hiking/hike-peak-hill
https://www.alltrails.com/trail/new-zealand/canterbury/peak-hill-track
Pages about the loop hike
https://adventuresftsouth.com/peak-hill/ (this makes the loop sound too unpleasant for me)
https://www.alltrails.com/trail/new-zealand/canterbury/peak-hill-loop
Other day-hikes in this region, none of which I’ve tried
About the Lake Coleridge region
https://www.engineeringnz.org/programmes/heritage/heritage-records/lake-coleridge-power-station/
https://www.houseandgarden.co.uk/gallery/mount-algidus-house
There is accommodation in this remote region, despite the lack of shops and gas stations. For instance, Glenthorne/Ryton Station hosts guests. Some of the appealing hikes are on its property.
