Plum Jam & the Routeburn Track

Hello!

We are in the little town of Te Anau right now as we just got back from hiking the Routeburn Track. It was AMAZING!!!

First, we spent to nights with the Flemings. Dr Tim and Marilyn Fleming are friends of Ned's granddad's and they spend 6 months out of the year here - yep, I have already decided where I am going to retire :) They were the SWEETEST couple EVER!! We rode bikes with them on this path that runs along a crystal clear river. It was shaded by trees and we stopped in little towns aling the way for scones and tea - it was like a movie! So idyllic! Then we had a delicious lunch at a place called The Packing Shed - it's an orchard run by an Irish man and his Kiwi wife. They run a little cafe there and that is where we had lunch. We had a"toastie" which is basically a grilled sandwich - like a pannini or grilled cheese. The Kiwi's add "ie" to the end of everthing - it' s so cute. Examples: sunglasses = sunnies. Running shoes = runnies (my fave); postman = postie, and the electrician is a "sparkie" :) haha, cute huh?!

Miss Marilyn has an amazing garden in her backyard so we ate like kings and queens there - she picks all the veggies from her garden and makes dinner from her own backyard everynight! Jessie and I helped her dig up potatoes, picked chard, corn, celery and squash - it was so fun! (Catherine, I know understand why you liked working in Cupcake's garden so much!!) Marilyn also makes preserves and jams - DELISH! She taught us how to make plum jam - Jessie and I helped her from start to finish and I have decided I want to be a jam maker, professionally :) Everytime Marilyn turned her back, Jessie and I were licking the bowl and the spoons, etc hehehe it was SOO good!! I think I could live off plum jam! The reason it is so good is because they pick the plums from the orchard in their neighborhood so the plums are perfectly ripe! She only uses half the amount of sugar the recipe calls for bc the plums are so naturally sweet. Anywhoo, obviously I am obsessed :)

We left the Flemings on Sunday morning - we were sad to leave, they are like our Kiwi grandparents! - and drove to Te Anau. Early Monday morning, we took a shuttle from Te Anau to the Divide which is the trailhead for the Routeburn. The Routeburn was so incredible! There were so many different kinds of landscapes in just 3 days. The 1st day - you feel like you are in the move "Fern Gully" - with lots of moss, streams, water falls - you feel like a little fairy is going to fly out any second :) That night we spent the night at the "McKenzie Hut" - whch was amazing!! So much nicer than the Mueller Hut we stayed in last week :)! And we had better cooking utensils so we ould actually eat hot food. We met some funny older Kiwi guys who started singing Georgia on My Mind when we told them we are from Atlanta. Day 2 was incredible too - you get above the "bush line" or tree line so you are walking along the ridge line of the moutain and you can see two rivers, the Tasman Sea, and several moutain ranges!! It was breathtaking!! That night we slept in the "Routeburn Falls Hut" which was sweet also!! It was right next to two waterfalls. I slept next to an old Japanese man who woke up at the crack of dawn and preceeded to triple bag his entire contents of his pack bc it was raining. I didn't think there were that many grocery bags in existence. My personal fave was when he would not like how he had wrapped his shoes or something and REDO it. The sound of crunching grocery bags at sunrise for an hour is not very pleasant :) We were so lucky the rain held out til the last day as it's the shortest leg of the walk and it's mostly under tree cover. It looked like a fairy tale too. Any of you out there as obsessed with "Twilight" as I am ( I just finished the 4th book, tear.) I thought Bella and Edward might come flying through the trees :)!

Once you reach the end, you have to take a shuttle back from where you started so we had along day of bus rides...so as you might guess I was about to vomit for like 4 hours. We had a bus driver who was driving the moutain roads like a bat out of Hades. Jessie was like - "what does he think this is? Indy 500?" I was too green to answer :) Foretunatley, the leg from Queenstown to Te Anau was much more pleasant :) So today we are enjoying not having 40 lbs packs on our backs and are just taking it easy! We are going to decide what to do for the next few days and them mom and dad fly into Queenstown next Tuesday! We are so excited to see them!

I miss you guys!!!!!!!!! Love you!

Alley