We were glad to escape the school group and to head back to civilization! The weather was bad but still better than the last forecast said: There was no snow at the hut, only some in the mountains.
As we were already so close to the civilization and didn’t have any difficult part ahead of us, we actually looked forward to have some snow. So were a little disappointed that we didn’t get to experience snow down to our feet. Nevertheless, there was snow up in the mountains and we were glad that we are not at Waiau pass or Travers saddle anymore.
The last three hours of hiking were quite easy. An easy path followed lake Rotoiti. When we arrived in St. Arnaud, we were soaked as it started to rain heavily. We were glad to seek shelter in the DOC center and to look at the newest weather forcast: snow is supposed to come down to 500m tomorrow! We were quite happy that we are not in the backcountry anymore…
After we visited the DOC center, we went to a little cafe to eat a great piece of cake 🙂 A nice lady offered us a ride to Christchurch. Unfortually, this was the wrong direction, so we had to try to find a hitchhike to Blenheim out in the rain. A couple form the Netherlands took us and we were in Blenheim about one hour later.
When we arrived in Blenheim, we looked for a nice hostel and we were glad to have a private room without any snoring people 😉