Pt6 Day 12. Red Hills Hut to St Arnaud - 26/03/17

Today was a relatively simple walk into St Arnaud. We got away just before 0800 - it wasn't a long day but we thought we might minimise traffic problems if we could walk the road earlier on a Sunday morning. It was about 18km in total to get to Alpine Lodge and we arrived at about 1230 with only a brief stop on the way for a rest and snack.  The GPS data for the day is here.

It was chilly and misty this morning so we both had an extra layer on.  We made a rookie mistake by initially heading off in the wrong direction for 200m or so - didn’t feel right when we were heading uphill!!!  A quick correction saw us onto an obvious 4wd track as per the notes :-(  The first 5 km were down this easy, wide 4wd track before the next 2km through a bit of native and exotic forest brought us to SH63.
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Limbering up on a chilly morning before kicking off.

Still in MRFP.

This is what a 4wd track looks like once you find it!!

Down the track through forest with the mist lifting a bit.

The 4wd track stopped at a locked gate by some derelict farm buildings.

On the margins of the bush section - you may be able to see a yellow grader in the centre of the picture - that is SH63.

A nice little beech forest section for a couple of kms ........

..... with some reasonable sized beeches in places.

Of course, since the earthquake, SH63 has become part of the new main route between Picton and Christchurch so is somewhat busier than might otherwise be expected.  All in all though it wasn't too bad, albeit it did involve climbing as we had dropped height considerably in the previous 7km!!

Rocked into the luxury of a room at the Alpine Lodge and eventually decided we would take a full 2 days to rest up and sort out resupply (our box had arrived here no problem), washing (clothes and bodies after 8 days!) and equipment issues (possibly a trip to Nelson). Being Sunday it was the famous BBQ buffet night here at Alpine Lodge, so B and I both tucked into that before retiring for the night!

Stopped for a brief rest/snack at the entrance to the Rainbow skifield.

Lots of roadworks all along this road to help try and cope with the huge increase in traffic volumes since SH1 was closed by the earthquake.

But Sunday seemed to be a day of rest for these guys.

A surprise to see two the same next to each other!

A little bit of farming in evidence along the way to St Arnaud.

A small bacon factory :-)

Not too much further to go.

Nice drain to walk in - but I didn't think I would fit through the culvert so I had to divert!

St Arnaud Lodge is in a lovely setting right by the road.