Morrison Footbridge to Arthurs Pass – 0km (2163km total)
At 3am this morning I woke up to the sound of rain starting to fall on my tent. That wasn’t a good sign for being able to make it up to goats pass. At just before 6am I got out of my tent and asked the others what we were going to do. The consensus was that we shouldn’t attempt goats pass in the rain, which I was glad to hear. However, we still had one problem, we had crossed the river yesterday before camping and that same river now separated us from the highway and our escape route. I told the others I was going back to bed and I would get up in another half an hour when it was light, to see if we would be able to get back across the river. Thankfully, it hadn’t rained that much. So the river wasn’t much higher than when we had crossed it yesterday.
We made it back out to the footbridge and to the state highway where we started to walk towards Arthurs Pass while also attempting to hitch. Yet no one wanted to stop and give wet, bedraggled hikers a lift (I don’t know why! 🤷🏼♀️). Finally a bus pulled over and said we could have a lift for $10 each. We were sold, but it was also a sweet, sweet deal for the bus driver!
On the way to Arthurs we climbed 500m in elevation and it got colder and wetter. We could also see snow at about 1000m, so we knew we had made a good decision to exit out and not to walk up a track that is essentially a flowing river bed.
In Arthurs Pass, we met back up with J in the cafe, who had done a similar thing to us, except he hitched out last night, knowing that he didn’t want to hike in the rain. We got some beds in a sweet self run hostel and spent the rest of the day hanging out, staying warm, eating, drying our gear and organizing our food for the next leg.
Today, I am thankful for warm hostels out of the rain and snow.
