By Ruth
Distance: 30 km
One topic that comes up a lot on the trail is food. Everyone is in search of the magical meal that is delicious, filling, and light to carry. People have different preferences amongst the three.
For us we want filling/nutritious first, lightweight second, and then within those constraints try to get as delicious as we can. Other people seem to prioritize weight over everything, like the French man we met who is “cold soaking”, i.e. he does not carry a stove, so will pour cold water on his couscous or instant mashed potatoes and eat that for dinner with some almond butter. “It’s not that bad!”, he insists.
Other people prioritize deliciousness to an inspirational degree. For the past two days we’ve been having our meal breaks with Maeve and Linda, two Australians who seem to be carrying the entire produce aisle with them: lettuce, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, sprouts, fresh ginger and garlic, asparagus, avocados, the list goes on. We are green with envy at their meals, and also at their strength to carry all of that good stuff for so long.
One thing that almost everyone brings is cheese, but people have different ideas of what kind of cheese is best. Some like an aged cheddar which will keep well over a few days. Others like a soft cheese like Brie or Camembert which won’t sweat like hard cheeses do. (We can’t take those because of Elliot’s bad experience with Camembert on his pilgrimage, which left his bag permanently smelling of cheese.) I enjoy cream cheese so I bring Philadelphia, which is a bit different here than in North America, but still good. And of course everyone also eats Tasty cheese.
Tasty cheese is a type of cheese here in NZ. We don’t really understand what it is. People have described it anywhere from “like a strong cheddar” to “it’s just tasty!”. We don’t know what it is, but that hasn’t stopped us from consuming a lot of it while we’re here. We have to admit, in a wrap, it is rather tasty.
Today’s walk was pretty uneventful, especially after the intensity of yesterday. We woke up amongst the sheep (the campsite was surrounded by sheep paddocks), had our breakfast and tea, and headed out on the gravel road.
We walked the entire length of that road to a highway, hitched a few kilometres along that, then walked a bit more into the Pureora Forest park where we are camping tonight. Usually I find road walking boring but after yesterday I rather enjoyed the feeling of getting into a rhythm and covering some distance.
For the next two days we are biking the Timber Trail, which we looking forward to as a real change of pace.
