Counting down the days

2 days left of work for me and only 7 days until we plan to hit the trail now and it's starting to feel real!!!

Emily finished up work a couple of weeks ago and has done most of the packing around the house and almost all of our belongings are now packed into storage and our house is feeling very empty. We still have a long list of things to do before we head off so our minds have been occupied and not so focused on the trail itself but that will change next week when we walk out of our home for the last time.

To add to the build up to our start date I've been seeing a few TA walkers coming through Auckland city over the past month. You can tell they're TA walkers by the state of their boots, hiking poles, packs and general look of exhaustion. I'm sure we'll look and be feeling the same by the time we make it that far.

I'm surprised at the response we've had with our blog, at first I wasn't interested in writing a blog at all, I just wanted to enjoy the trail and not have to worry about documenting it all and trying to make posts from our phones as we go but just about everyone I get into a conversation with about the trail is interested to know about what we're up to and how we're doing it and asks if we're keeping a blog. So here it is! We'll see how it progresses as we go and maybe it'll turn out to be a good way to reflect on the journey in the future.

Most of our gear is packed and ready to go. It looks like a lot but it's not bad when split between the two of us.

Trail runners or boots?

With less than 4 weeks to go until we start the trail we're beginning to really look hard at our gear list and we're definitely questioning whether or not we've made the right choice of footwear between trail runners or a traditional pair of hiking boots.
In fact we've probably spent more hours thinking and had more conversations about our choice of footwear than any other item on our gear list.

For us we've decided to go with a good pair of traditional leather hiking boots which from what we can tell is not the norm for the TA trail. I think there was a Facebook poll where 70% of people are starting with trail runners this year so we'll be in the minority on this one.

Emily trying out her Scarpa Delta GTX Boots

We've weighed up the pros and con's of using the boots and we just felt that the additional protection, stability and durability of boots is worth it even though they are heavier and slower to dry out.

Although we've never owned a pair of trail runners as such our old choice for hiking were lightweight hiking shoes. These were pretty good and provided some waterproofing but I did always find myself being extra cautious about foot placement in muddy/boggy/wet conditions and I felt that really slowed our pace down and made the day that much harder for us especially on long days. After switching to boots we can now just push through without worrying about getting a shoe full of mud with each puddle we step in.
I'm sure a lot of people would argue that you should just do that in trail runners anyway as they'll dry out quickly but for me I could never just get over it, I think subconsciously I was being more careful about foot placement than I really needed to be and since switching to boots I've found it much easier to keep the pace up.

The one downside of the boots that I am worried about is the weight. As your legs start to turn to jelly after 4-6 hours on your feet you can really feel that you have to swing the weights on the end of your legs to keep moving when compared with our shoes. I think we'll adjust to that pretty quickly on the trail though once we get going and our legs strengthen up.

The other thing we keep telling ourselves is that just because we start with boots, doesn't mean that we can't or won't switch out to trail runners as we go. We're flexible and will only find out what we really like once we're out there and doing it!