Distance: 3.6 km (2.5 DOC hours) - Tramping track - Easy-moderate terrain
Altitude: 537m to 931m. Gain: 420m. Loss: 278m . Gradient: 11 deg (Moderate)
Skills:

Tramping track (4/9)
Cut, marked tramping track: natural, rough ground surface

Primary, mapped (1/5)
Formal route, on maps, principal access to hut or along range / catchment

Moderate (difficulty: 3/5)
Occasional moderate climbs

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

From Iron Bark Hut, head upriver on the western bank, passing the sidecreek opposite to a swingbridge 100m further upriver. The track is marked.

Cross the swingbridge, then head back down river to where a 2nd bridge crosses the sidecreek. Once across pick up a steep track climbing the spur/face to the NE. This track climbs steeply to the ridgeline which is follows east before dropping back to the Mangatera above its lower gorges. An easy side follows for a further kilometer to reach a signposted track junction where the track from Unknown Campsite joins from the south. Allk tracks were well cut and marked in 2012.

Note: Described in the reverse direction to your journey

From the Unknown Campsite turnoff, the Iron Bark track sidles downriver a further kilometer, before starting a steady 200m climb to the ridgeline to the south. The track is well marked and cut (2012). Following the ridgeline west, it finally swings SSW and drops a spur to the forks above Iron Bark Hut. The last section of this was steep.

You can ford the river in normal flows (knee deep), but a bridge crosses the sidecreek, heading upstream which takes you to a swing bridge over the main river some 100m upstream of the forks.

Iron Bark Hut sites at the base of slips a hundred meters downriver on the western bank.