It's really real

Over the past two weeks, this trip has gone from a decision to a reality. We've rented our condo to a professor from Princeton, whose wife will be doing a postdoc at Harvard. Liz and I have both told our jobs that we'll be leaving in September. Liz was very happy and excited when her job agreed to do their best to take her back when we return in April.

The beginning of it all

So, we've decided to hike the Te Araroa, a 3000km trail that stretches from Cape Reinga at the northern tip of New Zealand, to Bluff, at the southern tip.  How did we get here?  What made us decide to walk away from our lives and into the wilderness for six months?   Sleeping on the ground, getting eaten alive by bugs, carrying everything we need to survive on our backs, and going without showering for days at a time... we've done this for a couple of weeks at a time before, but five or six months?  What are we thinking?