Food for long Tramps

Blah, I'd die having to endure energy bars or the like for that long. I go the following regardless of the length of the trip: Breakfast - Oats, powdered milk + choc chips Lunch - Cheese and crisp breads Dinner - Cup of soup followed by Continental pasta (serves "6") + dehydrated veggies (You could add some jerky or salami -- I'm a vego, though) Snacks - Almonds and chocolate Drinks - Tea bags and sugar Maybe it's just me, but I rarely get through all my snacks. I also carry Barocca with me -- makes the water a bit tastier and gives a nice energy boost. I carried 12 days of food into Glenorchy (ex Queenstown) as I was doing the Caples Greenstone then Rees Dart and, excluding all the crap I kept in storage (chargers, civies, etc) it only weighed about 17kg. :)

Try "One Square Meal" meals for lunch, could get a little boring after a few days. I find the 'cranberry' bars significantly nicer then the Apricot.

Can you buy them throught the South Island [TeAnau]

They seem to be widespread... I would be surprised if they were not in Te anau.

Yeah, One Square Meals are everywhere. Te Anau 4 Square has a pretty good selection of foods. Oddly its the cheapest place Ive ever seen those Back Country dehydrated meals too, about $9 for a double serve. Certainly cheaper then Invercargill where the stuff is made! Im with pjg084 in using the big serve Continental Pasta meals. I carry round a 1 KG bag of salted chashew nuts which can be chucked in with the pasta along with some preserved salami. Will deffinetly be investing in some dehydrated veges though. Start to crave them after about day 6.

I found Te Anau to be expensive so stocked up in Invercargil, got a good deal from the Backcountry foods outlet store in Invercargill. On our other tramp to Karamea we sent like 15 or so d-hi in advance!

There's heaps out there if you google ultralight hiking meals and other keywords e.g. Ultralite Joe's Moose Goo recipe which is also on this forum. I did a big internet search on Sunday (raining in the hills!) and got loads of good ideas and inspirations. I bulk buy Back Country Cuisine through our tramping club initiative. We spend about $2K all up and the meals are around $8 something each for the 2 person option. It's the lightest option for multi-day trips. I've found a few recipes for no cook evening meals to try in summer to keep the weight down.

I've gone to couscous and dehydrated mince. It's cheaper than regular freeze-dried meals, and you can add flavours of your choice (e.g. Maggi Cook in the Pot sachets). For lunch I have tortillas and salami - I take some mix to make the tortillas so I only carry about 3 days' worth at a time, all the rest are just a bag of flour so they don't go stale.

I have not come across couccous and im not sure what it is and where do you get it[i have lived a shelterd life]