January 13, 2026
Red Hills Hut to St Arnaud
TA km marker 1971.7 to 1992.0
Hiked today: 20.3 km

After cleaning the hut to ‘leave it in better condition than we found it’, the big decision was whether to walk the shorter old track out to the road or take the newer long route up to the hilltop for one last mountain view before leaving the range. Rob was ambivalent but I was quite keen to have a short hiking day. We chose the quicker exit. My excuse was that I could make sure that Sarah made it out safely with her sprained ankle. Sarah, however, started before us and walked so quickly that we could only see her in the distance ahead for the first km!

The way out was first a rocky track which became a leafy path through beech forest and finally transformed to an undulating forest path. It was both pretty and easy going, altogether pleasant until we struck the highway.  Then we were walking beside a single lane 80 speed limit highway with almost no shoulder to walk on for 12 km into the town of St Arnaud. There was no reason to take it slowly, and we were in town by midday.

We caught up with some of our hiking friends over a delicious lunch of burgers and kumara fries. Most of them had hitched a ride into town, avoiding the roadside dangers.

We have a motel booked for 2 nights and are in a lovely roomy, newly renovated little cabin with good kitchen facilities. First job was to have a long hot shower, drying off afterwards on fluffy soft towels. Then I took our pile of dirty clothes  around to the laundry and used the bar of soap to scrub trousers, socks, cuffs and collars by hand before putting them through a wash cycle. We brushed off our packs and shoes, washed all our cooking gear, etc and sat down to work out what food supplies we needed to buy to supplement what we had already sent here from Picton.

The tiny grocery store-come-cafe sells inexpensive and delicious food and drinks but, although there is an impressive range of groceries, they are more expensive than in the bigger towns. Fortunately we have most of the supplies we needed to top up what we had posted here from Picton.

We met up with the hikers we had shared huts or campgrounds with in the Richmond Ranges for drinks at the fancier Lodge which has a bar and restaurant. There was Don from Israel, Darcy and Nathan – brother and sister from UK, Margot and her partner from France, Stu from Perth, Lucien from Germany, Sarah from Hobart, Ellie from USA (who carries a ukulele), and Jodie from Norway. Jodie, Ellie and Margot are all carrying art supplies to paint little watercolour pictures as they travel.

Now we have 2 nights in a motel before meeting our son, Pete, on Thursday. We will set off on the next section with him on Friday.