Day 14: Red Hills Hut to St Arnaud.

I'm showered, I've clean clothes, I've eaten. Eaten a lot. And had one of the best tasting beers of my life. I survived the Richmond Ranges. i also survived some weird guy reminiscent of a killer come out of the bush in front of me and i also survived an 8.5 km walk along the shoulder of SH8.

We were up early in the hut, we could almost taste the food we were going to get in town. Mathew the young guy we'd been walking with, who was only doing the Richmond Ranges decided to give away all his spare meals. Zip lock bags filled with cous cous. We all start taking them to Mathews reply 'you fell for it you suckers! Now you carry all my heavy food out'. He had got us! I'm pretty sure Jennie now had an extra kg of couscous in her bag to carry for 20km.

I hit the hill climbs hard and fast today, i was out of there. With music on, i charged. The track joined a mountain bike track and it was in such good condition i ran it.

It then turned to a farm track which i also cruised down. It was going so well until a man with a pack half a metre above his head came out of the bush in front of me. Where had he been?! Who was he? What on earth was on his pack. I warily got closer and notice his pack actually was made up of 2 steel boxes with a pack on top. It just looked dodgey! The girls at work had told me to watch out for psychos in the mountains and I laughed it off but here I am. And could he be. My pace was faster than his and i was no sooner alongside him but not before I took a sneaky photo from afar so if I did go missing there at least would be that on my phone.

As i approached i sussed out whether he had a gun but it didn't look like it. He certainly wasn't a hunter. In line with him now i friendly say 'hi' to which he monotonely asked 'you walking the whole thing?'. 'yeah' i said before quipping 'big pack'. 'yeah' was his response. Then i said well I'm gonna carry on and picked up the pace almost to a jog. I freaked myself out and as i was briskly walking away from him I was waiting to hear a gunshot and that would be the end of me. I'd be chopped up and put in those steel boxes. I should never have watched the Netflix horror film 'Fresh'.

Once round the bend and out of site from him I ran. I ran, haha. Almost 5km. I ran 5 km after having hiked over 250km in 14 days straight. I also laughed. I got to the bottom of the track where it met the road and waited for either Laura, Conny or Jennie to make it down. I hoped they'd make it down. Jennie was first and she was like 'what the hell was in his pack. He was cagey as and up to no good.'. we sit down and have lunch while waiting for the others. Then he appears. He doesn't say a word and goes straight to his Ute and puts his pack in the back. He was there fiddling around a while when the smell of detol wafts over. I don't even want to know what's just went on or what he has done. He drives off and that was that.

Now for the road walk along the state highway. Firstly it was nice to be on flat solid ground. Secondly NZ needs to make wider road shoulders because i came awfully close to some campervans and cars motoring through at more than 120km in an 80 zone.

I finally made it to St Arnaud safely without an injury, a blister, any pain. I'm greeted with Conny, Andrew, Brent and David sitting outside the Alpine Lodge having a beer. I was right, there was a beer waiting and i got my chocolate milk.

We all had dinner together and it was a laugh a minute all recapping the previous 9 days, talking about all the people we'd met and cheers-ing us making it through the Richmonds.

Again i took a late night stroll down to Lake Rotoiti to watch the sunset and admire arriving in yet another stunning location on foot.

Ren x