The first challenge: the food plan for the first five days (four days of walking, one day in reserve).
Breakfast (quantities given per person per day):
- Rolled oats, 5 tbsp
- Coconut flakes, 5 tbsp
- Sesame, 1 tbsp
- Sugar, 1 sachet
- Chia seeds, 21 g
- Exotic fruit powder, 21 g
Lunch and in between:
- Wraps, 1
- Cheese
- Crunchy peanut butter
- Mixed nuts
- Oat bar, 1
- Coconut slice, 1
- Raw chocolate, 1
- Dried mango
- Tea, 1
- Coffee, 1
Dinner, couscous and ramen noodles in rotation:
- Couscous, 62.5 g
- Vegetable stock cube, 0.5
- Dried soup vegetables, 35 g
- Ramen noodles, 1
Which adds up to this work of art:
Each day has its own column: at the bottom the breakfast bag with the oat mix, next to it coffee and tea as instant sachets, above that dinner and right at the top the bars for in between. On top of that come tortillas, cheddar and a jar of peanut butter for the lunch breaks, dried mango, nuts and chia seeds. That way you can see at a glance whether everything is there for each day.
We still have the feeling that the portions are far too generous, even though we already cut the rations other people recommended quite ruthlessly… I suppose we will find out the hard way?
Postscript: how it really went
We found out the hard way. The worry that the portions might be too big was unfounded – quite the opposite:
- Hiker hunger: by 1000 kilometres at the latest it had arrived (Section 7 ). In Section 9 I wrote: “We are always hungry! We hardly know what feeling full is.” We had to force ourselves to stop so that the planned daily rations would last.
- The canoe section: on the Wanganui River you don’t have to carry the food on your back – and still we had barely enough with us. Paddling doesn’t make you any less hungry (Section 8 ).
- Resupply: along the way we restocked in supermarkets, and sometimes trail magic helped: Jayme and Brighid gave us the dried food they had over-bought (Section 5 ).
- Food boxes for the South Island: because there are fewer places to shop there, we sent three boxes with 18 days of food in total from Wellington to accommodation along the trail (Section 10 ).
- Variety: over time couscous and ramen turned into “non-stop ramen noodles with tuna, couscous with tuna or instant mashed potato with – no, not tuna – peanut butter” – which made the burger in St. Arnaud a feast (Section 12 ).
The gear we carried is in the post Te Araroa – our gear .