Te Araroa (day 45) - Porters Creek Hut to St Arnaud / mile 1223

Today was the last push before town and it worked out much better than I expected.

I got out of the hut just after the sunrise making sure not to wake up the others which I most likely did anyway. Trail was following the rocky river bed with few crossings in between and was mainly going up. I've reached the Red Hills Hut before the midday and decided to take an alternative path to the Red Hills Car Park going alongside the official TA route, it felt like descending into a Carcassonne game board. After about two hours I reached the road leading to St Arnaud from which I took a short hitchhike to town.

I got picked up by Steve, he was a retired marine officer living in the area. Steve was blasting Miles Davis in his red sports car. He dropped me off in the city centre and jazzed away making sure I was alright. Here I checked in at the Alpine Lodge which (luckily) was full, it allowed me to get a 20$ camp spot rather than 65$ bunk bed. They had a quirky rule to not give people camping permissions until their backpackers accomodation was full. 

I dropped the bag, set the tent up and went to the only place I could resupply in town, the gas station which was 'not recommended' as the prices here were about 20% higher than in the big chain supermarkets. Most of hikers were sending food packages to St Arnaud for that exact reason.

I bought four days of resupply for 80$ and topped it up with items other hikers left in the backpackers lounge at the Alpine Lodge. It worked out well and most likely cheaper than sending a package.

In lounge I met Floris from Netherlands, he was hiking South Island northbound while his girlfriend was doing the same thing southbound. I though that was the coolest thing a couple could do, they met halfway through the island few weeks ago and were about to finish the trail in just over a week.

I spend rest of the evening with Floris, we watched Alex Honnold's 'Free Solo' on Netflix and Beau Mile's African kayaking adventure on youtube. In the meantime I went back to the gas station, bought a coke and a 4000kcal tub of Ben&Jerry's. Then we went to the Alpine Lodge to have a dinner which was a Korean style pork burger and a pint of mid strength beer. Floris used to live in Switzerland where he worked in an outdoor shop, he hiked and run there quite a lot in his spare time. We talked about our experiences on the trail and shared the tips for the road ahead, it was a very pleasant and unexpected evening and I think we both enjoyed each others company before the next tough sections on Te Araroa.

The hikers midnight aka 9pm approached soon after and we said goodbye. I had to tackle my food packaging before bedtime, which still felt excessively heavy afterwards but I knew I will appreciate having it in a few days.

Overall it was a great day on and off the trail.