Australian Hiker

Yesterday afternoon was spent putting all our food together for our upcoming trip on the Great Ocean Walk which starts in a week. This process started a few weeks ago as we looked through what we had sitting in our cupboard. At the start of the pandemic in 2020 we stocked up on freeze dried meals as a ‘just in case’ not knowing what was going to happen. This has meant that rather than turning over our stash of meals on a regular basis, for the first time ever because of the reduced hiking we have done over the past few years, we have a number of freeze dried meals that are well past their ‘best before dates’. While these dates are advisory, in some instances it’s not just a matter of a month or two but rather a couple of years so we will see how they go. In addition many of the meals we have are single meals rather than the two serve options we need for our couples trips.

Over the past six years we’ve learned that it’s pretty much impossible to consume the amount of calories we burn on a week-long hike for a number of reasons. So for each trip we refine what we carry based on what we want to carry rather than what we should be eating and that means for this trip, we’re carrying less food than ever. Don’t worry, we’re not going to starve but it will be interesting to see how we go.