Trip 077 - Spiers Road & Ross Bush Track

 

DATE: August 6
LEADER: Antony Pettinger (03 473 7924)
TRIP GRADE: E-M (4-6 hours)
MEET: Woodhaugh, 9am

The club’s association with Flagstaff dates right back to the very first trip in 1923, and the club have visited the summit hundreds of times since. One of the less used routes from the city side to Flagstaff is via Spiers Road, which is unformed in the upper section, but remains a public road.

 Spiers Road was the start of the old bullock track, also known as the Snowy Mountain Track, and was the first road northwards out of Dunedin until the coastal route was established.

Spiers Road is also one of the few legal road options available to access the Ben Rudd’s property (there is also a legal road from the Bullring adjacent to the firebreak track, heads towards the summit at the left-hand turn at the top of the steep section to join with the old bullock track.

With the formation of the Ben Rudd’s Trust in the late 1990s, one of the first tasks was to reopen the historic Speirs Road route to Ben Rudd’s – this road also passes Ben Rudd’s earlier ‘Woodside’ property on the town side of Flagstaff.

This trip will travel up from Spiers Road and may attempt to follow the legal road to Ben Rudd’s (crossing tall tussock terrain), before crossing back to the walkway and down the Ross Bush Track to Booth Road.