By Ruth

Distance: 18 km

Today was our last day in the Richmonds! When we woke up it was a perfectly clear morning, if a little cold. We had breakfast and tea at the picnic table outside the hut so as not to wake the people who were still asleep inside. I was hoping for a nice sunrise but instead had to settle for a gradual brightening of the amphitheatre of mountains surrounding the hut. Not too bad.

We set off, riding high on the feeling of walking out the door and directly into the wild. There’s really nothing quite like it.

The morning’s walk had a good variety of up and down, stream crossings, swampy mud sections (to our great annoyance) and of course, views of the surrounding mountains. We were following a decent-sized river for a while and when we finally crossed it, we stopped for a snack and a swim. So I finally got my river swim. So refreshing!

Eventually the clouds came over and a light rain began to fall. It was five hours of walking before we reached Red Hills hut where we had lunch.

At the hut we encountered a lot of NOBOs just heading out from St Arnaud this morning. It was a nice feeling to see them all with their packs heavy with 10 days of food, and to know that we were on our way out!

After lunch it was just a couple hours down to the road, where we caught a hitch on the highway into town.

Now we are in town, had a hot shower, we’re sleeping inside tonight, and we went out for pizza and beer to celebrate a super successful sojourn in the mountains.