Sullivans Dam to Mount Cargill via Escarpment Track
Dunedin · Otago · Point to Point
This walk was suggested by the community and checked against the authority quoted above before it was published. The route line comes from official track data. Dunedin City Council’s own wording: “Two clauses of the same policy split this walk. Dunedin City Council Dog Control Policy 2024, section 6.2: “If a public place is not listed in this policy, then dogs are allowed there on leash. Dogs on leash and under control is the default classification in Dunedin.” Neither Cloud Forests Track nor Escarpment Track is listed anywhere in the policy, so the climb is on leash by default. The summit is different: Schedule A lists “Mount Cargill – except on walking track where dogs are allowed off leash” among the prohibited Reserve areas, so on the walking tracks inside Mt Cargill Scenic Reserve dogs may be off leash, and off those tracks the reserve is a prohibited area. We tested where the boundary actually falls against the council's own Mt Cargill Scenic Reserve polygon (Recreation MapServer, Parks Management Area) on 28 August 2026: none of Cloud Forests Track is inside it, only the last 250 m or so of Escarpment Track into the Cowan Road car park is, and all of A H Reed Track is. Policy read 28 August 2026”. Evidence: the rule-setter’s own published wording. How we check dog rules.
Good to know
Dogs are allowed here. Keep them on the lead, watch for ground-nesting birds and stock, and read the signs at the gate.
About Sullivans Dam to Mount Cargill via Escarpment Track
Sullivans Dam to Mount Cargill via Escarpment Track covers 4.6 km, near Dunedin in Otago, walked as a point-to-point.
The back way up Mount Cargill, about 4.6 km one way from Sullivans Dam in the Leith Valley to the summit, and a much bigger day than the Bethunes Gully route on the other side. Amber sent this one in and her description of it is the one to trust: boardwalk steps at the start, muddy after that, and the Escarpment Track proper beginning at the clearing where the power lines cross. Park on Leith Valley Road near the southern end of the reservoir and pick up the dam loop, following the eastern shore about 600 m to the sign for Cloud Forests Track. From there it climbs steadily through mixed broad-leaved forest and then scrub, roughly an hour to the viewpoint under the transmission line, and another 300 m of easy walking to the four way junction with Sullivans Bridle Track, which people still call the Telecom Track. Go straight across and you are on Escarpment Track. The council grades that one a tramping track and it earns it: steep and rough in places, up through scrub and briefly through pines above the northeast facing scarp of Pigeon Hill, then a narrow line that wanders north, down, around and up again to Cowan Road at the car park near the top. Cross the car park and the A H Reed Track is ten minutes of well made gravel to the summit. Amber warns about pigs and about the overgrowth, and both are worth taking seriously on the Escarpment section. Navigation is by orange markers, the track is genuinely muddy for long stretches, and this is not the side of Cargill where you will meet many people. Our calculated time of about 1 hr 40 min is the optimistic version. Add up the council's own figures for the three tracks and you get 140 minutes of climbing before you have walked a metre of the dam loop, so plan on two and a half hours up and something over an hour and a half back down. Take water, because there is none on the climb once you leave the dam. The lead goes on for almost all of it, and here is why, because the answer is not obvious. Dunedin City Council's Dog Control Policy 2024 makes on leash the default for any public place it does not list, and neither Cloud Forests nor Escarpment is listed. Mount Cargill itself IS listed, in Schedule A, as a prohibited reserve except on the walking track where dogs are allowed off leash. We checked the council's own reserve boundary to see where that exception starts, and it is late: none of Cloud Forests Track is inside Mt Cargill Scenic Reserve, only the last stretch of Escarpment into the Cowan Road car park is, and all of the A H Reed Track is. So walk the climb on a lead, and you can let the dog off on the gravel to the summit if you want to. Off the formed track up there the reserve is prohibited ground, so keep to the path either way.
It sits at the hard end and gains roughly 450 m, and takes about 1 hr 39 to walk.
Dogs are allowed here, on the lead. This walk is on the map because Amber & Roo suggested it, and we checked it against the source above.
