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...