Tramping

(Pictured: Mountains behind the trail to Hooker Glacier, I am the tiny blue speck on the swing bridge)

Tramping is what they call hiking in NZ, which I think is funny. We spent a good chunk of yesterday tramping around the trails of Mt. Cook and ended up with sore feet and legs. Mt. Cook is a strange town. I had expected it to be up at high altitude, near the mountain that shares its name, but it is rather in a valley near the foot of the mountain. The mountains in that area are like huge lumps gracefully popping out of an otherwise flat landscape, which I found sort of odd. It turns out to be awesome because it means that most of the hiking trails are relatively flat - bonus for lazy me.

The town of Mt. Cook has like 100 people or something ridiculous, and they don't even has gas piped in. They also don't have a supermarket or gas station and are basically a glorified campground. We have been blazing a trail around the NZ YHAs (youth hostel) and left from the Mt. Cook YHA this morning to arrive at our third YHA this afternoon in Dunedin. We had a good day of driving today, Kane has gotten the hang of it, and, since we're prepared for the distances and aren't on a super strict timetable, the driving isn't bad. Not like the drive between SLO and Hayward which seems to take forever because you just want to get where you're going.

So, it's been nice. So far, the scenery isn't anything you can't find in California (save one particular lake that is a gnarly neon teal color - naturally), so if you want to save some cash, take a road trip around the Golden State instead. The west coast of NZ should be a bit different; we'll be heading over there tomorrow. Until then, we actually have a room with a double bed tonight, as opposed to the 8 person bunk bed room we were in last night - yowza, so we will sleep well in Dunedin.