The track crosses steep country above the shoreline of Lake Hawea and along a farm road, part of which is chiselled out of a sheer rock hillside.
Doc Wanaka area manager Paul Hellebrekers said the original road the track followed was created using explosives during the early 1960s by brothers Ian and John Sarginson, two high country characters. They bulldozed and blasted the road, to carve out the steep bluffs, after Lake Hawea was designated for hydro-electric use and its level was raised 30m.
Access to the new track is from a car park, situated 16km from Hawea, along an unsealed road on the eastern side of Lake Hawea.
The track follows the old road to Silver Island Bay and sidles along the peninsula providing access to a designated campsite on Turihuka Conservation Area, at the mouth of the Dingle Burn, 11km from the car park.
For access up the Dingle Burn Valley, trampers will stay on the track along the Dingle Burn to the Hawea Conservation Area, which links across the Dingle Saddle to the Ahuriri Conservation Area.
The Ahuriri River catchment area leads down the valley to link with Omarama.
There is presently no public access further up Lake Hawea than the Turihuka Conservation Area, at the mouth of the Dingle Burn, where it flows into Lake Hawea.
Information about the new Dingle Burn track is available from the Mt Aspiring Department of Conservation office and visitor centre in Wanaka.
