New Zealand is expensive! We realized that the travel life of no cooking had to come to an abrupt stop. We cannot possibly afford to eat in restaurants. Each day here we have adjusted our practices…we’ve even eliminated our daily purchased cup of coffee; we’ve bought coffee mugs and are making our own now. Wine and beer are no longer a daily given. Private bathrooms are just too dear for this budget. Thankfully, we have stopped here with the cutbacks; we are in hostels but I am not ready to sleep in a dorm (although Jim would probably consider it). Even Internet access is not all that available and is costly so our blog entries while in New Zealand have been less frequent.

New Zealand is a nature-lover’s paradise. We are hiking daily and in awe of the beauty of this sparsely populated land. It’s like condensing all the beautiful sights of Canada in a small, drivable area. One day we are on the coast, the next we are exploring mountains and glacial fed lakes then back to the east coast, south, then west coast! And the weather is all over the place from sunny and warm at 18 degrees to 5 degrees with Antarctic winds blowing. We have made a visit to a second hand clothing shop for additional warm clothing.

As I write this blog, I look around the common room of our hostel and no one is talking to anyone; everyone in the room has their head down playing an electronic game, typing on a computer or reading on an e-book. That’s quite a change from travel days gone by and it isn't always the norm. We often will cook up our meal while others are cooking theirs and then sit down together and chat up a storm while eating. We quite like the backpackers way of travel.

Lake Tekapo and the Mount Cook/Aoraki area are drop-dead gorgeous! I'll let the photographs speak for themselves. Hikes across fields of sheep overlooking lakes with mountains as a backdrop are everywhere.

So far we seem to be doing a lot of driving so will need to do a better job of understanding the roads/distances/times for travel when planning. We are paying about $2.12/liter for gas so we would be doing the environment, our pocketbook and our sanity some good if we improved in this area.

Walking outdoors amongst natural beauty and eating delicious, fresh New Zealand food is keeping us fit and healthy. What fun!