January 19, 2012

Hey guys!

Today is Thursday night in NZ, and tomorrow Michael and I begin our walk in Abel Tasman, which is one of New Zealand’s most famous hikes. It is supposed to be absolutely gorgeous. 

We are both carrying one pair of pants, 2 shirts, some changes of socks and underwear, and our bathing suits. Besides that, we have a small pot and gas cooker from Simon (Peter and Carol’s son), food, water, our tent, and 3 sleeping bags. We have 3 because our sleeping bags are warm, but not warm enough. We did not buy the really expensive ones; so, although ours work...night is still too cold. Therefore, Simon also gave us one of his sleeping bags, which is a very fancy, nice one. We unzip the whole thing and use it as a big blanket for both of us on top of us and our sleeping bags every night. So far it has worked pretty well. 

Everything has worked w/ us traveling by car, but carrying these things on a 5 day hike will be a little different. I am just hoping we make it, and above all...we hope it doesn’t rain! It is impossible for us to also carry our enormous silver, space-ship like tarp, and so we can only hope for the best. 

Besides this, we have traveled Picton, Nelson, Golden Bay, and are now in the Abel Tasman region. The weather wasn’t great, but it cleared up...and we have been lucky the past few nights. No wind. No rain. The only bad thing continues to be these insane mosquitos and sand flies which are biting the hell out of us. Finally today we gave in and bought some of the campsites homemade insect repellent that they call, “bug juice.” We’ll see how it works tomorrow!

The other big news is that as we were driving to, “Old MacDonalds Farm,” our current campsite, I spotted “THE FAT TUI.” This was extremely exciting b/c over Christmas when I called the Murphy family to wish them happy holidays, my cousin Skyler told me we absolutely had to go eat a burger at “The Fat Tui.” He said it was a freaking huge burger, but the best, even better than the one that is famous all over NZ in Queenstown down south. 

I knew we were going to do Abel Tasman, but I had no idea where this place was. We figured we would stay at this crazy place, “Old MacDonalds Farm” b/c it was near where the track begins. It is far our there, no more grocery stores, town or anything, and as we were getting closer...I see it...there it was, the sign for “The Fat Tui.” It was totally funky, and I flipped out, and told Michael it was a MUST we eat a burger there. So, we did. We both shared fries, and each of us had our own huge burger tonight. I guess it will be our last real good, big meal until we come off the track. It was so big I couldn’t fit it all in my mouth. It fell apart by the end, but it was worth it. Very delicious! 

That’s all for now. I will write and post more pictures when we get back. Hopefully we make it! 

:-)