View this post on Instagram

Secretly, well, maybe not so secretly to my hiking group, eating food has been one of my favorite parts of the trail. We camped behind the Rangiriri Pie shop and ate the most exquisite pies I've had in either Australia or New Zealand. If hiking the TA, it's a can't miss. If in New Zealand, I recommend it. If abroad, I would still highly consider a weekend trip. Rather than your typical $4.50 round pie, Rangiriri pies are a $10 behemoth. As customary, Luke and I pushed the pace to make sure we arrived before closing and for first dibs on food. We ordered one each of the beef and mince, steak, and apple pie. We couldn't contain ourselves and put in a bacon and egg pie order for brekkie. Luke and I asked ourselves if we spend too much money on food. We agreed that we should never feel bad about spending money on delicious food. We've held true to that throughout. I've always had a voracious appetite, but it's reached new proportions on the TA. A 150g shareable bag of crisps you would bring to a picnic has now become a single serving. Family size biscuits vanish before bed. All chocolate bars are now one serving. Serving sizes are no longer applicable. I treat serving sizes as fractions of 5 instead of whole numbers. 2 servings are now 2/5s of a serving. In the US, I followed a relatively strict low carb diet based on Tim Ferris's slow carb diet. I walked into the grocery store knowing exactly what I needed and never walked away with anything else. I never had any sweets in my apartment. I now treat grocery stores as candy shops. If something catches my eye, it goes in the cart. I don't say no. I must be close to trying every biscuit, flavor of chips, and Cadbury chocolate the grocery store has to offer. Bon appetit! #teararoatrail #teararoa2018 #teararoa #nzhiking #multiday #multidayhike #thruhike #longdistancehiking #trailfood #hikingfood #bonappetit

A post shared by Kamil (@kamil.skwarek) on Jan 11, 2019 at 12:14pm PST