32km total 1945km
10 hours
Finally going back to civilization! But first it is a long way to the village of St Arnaud. I am already dreaming of fresh food and sincerely hope that there will be bacon in the burger I will eat tonight (for the record, it did). The trail goes up a small hill before going along the Maitland Creek. It looks nice and calme but you can clearly see the traces of the previous floods. This means that the trail is washed away in place so you have to do some climbing to cross the stream which had some interesting stuff to the walk. After a lunch break at Red Hills hut the trail goes up again on a mountain bike trail and offers nice view of the Wairau river and valley. Finally a forest gravel road brings me down to the SH63 state highway which I follow for almost two hours into St Arnaud. There I am offered a bed by two other hikers in the sold out Alpine Lodge. I enjoy my beer and food and we had a great evening. The room was very hot so I didn’t slept very well.
