We woke up cold and tired and wondered why the tent's ceiling was sagging lower than normal. Once we looked outside, we saw about three inches of soggy, wet snow on the ground. And here we thought we were getting away from the cold and snowy AK. We had slept in so we hurried and packed up camp and started back out on the trail. I was so cold from my wet gear and it was probably 35 degrees out so I was basically running, trying to get warm. It took quite some time to get the blood flowing.
After passing the Howden hut, it was an uphill climb for about 20 minutes and then all downhill until we finished the hike, which was at a place called The Divide. The last few minutes of the track, we were running because we saw that it was 10:00 and our bus was leaving at 10:10. But we made it! Just barely. We snacked on the bus and could finally get warm and relax. I was sure happy the (miserable) three day adventure had come to an end.
We switched buses once and were able to stop and get food and a hot cup of coffee. After about a three and a half hour ride, we made it back to Queenstown. There was a bit of an ordeal with parking for three days in the parking garage but we figured it out. We got Ryan a travel SIM card for his phone and ordered lamb kebabs in the mall. We headed out of town after a short while towards Dunedin. We stopped on the way at the Clyde Dam, which was massive! Quite a few hours later as it got dark, we reached our destination and found a holiday park to stay at. It had a "heated" indoor pool and hot tub that we went to before it closed at 10. Very excitedly, I went to get into the hot tub but found out that it was hardly luke warm... We were a bit disappointed and left to take showers instead. We made camp and went to bed.
