Day 88 - out of the wild

Red Hills hut ——> The Alpine Lodge, St Arnaud. 8km walk + 10km hitch

Today we were leaving the Richmonds and heading back into civilisation. I was excited for a shower, real food and to sleep but I was also incredibly sad to leave. It had been a stunningly beautiful section, and despite its energy-draining, soul-destroying climbs and descents, had been my absolute favourite section so far.

The official TA trail took you over one final peak before descending out through a forest to a highway where you could hitch a lift into St Arnaud. However it was beyond cold, and with town calling our names we instead chose to take a shorter more direct route to the highway along a gently descending 4WD track.

It was effortless walking after the last seven days.

The 4WD track brought us to a forest for the final few km. Hard decisions needed to be made about which route to take.

We were out of the forest by 10.15am and had our thumbs out on the highway by 10.30am.

It took a little longer than normal to get a ride, the highway was actually fairly quiet and there were three of us all hitching together but after half an hour a lovely couple from Auckland picked us up on their drive down south - they’d just walked the Queen Charlotte Track so were keen to chat to us about our experiences on the TA.

By midday, we’d checked into The Alpine Lodge in St Arnaud, had our laundry going, were sipping on ice cold cider and basking in the sunshine. Albeit also sweating profusely in our waterproofs & puffers - all other clothes were in the wash.

We did nothing but relax for the rest of the afternoon. We ate an absurdly expensive but quite delicious dinner at the hotel restaurant and were asleep by our usual trail bedtime of 9pm.