Melanie Bertsch was born in 1988 in Esslingen, Germany. After completing her demanding and challenging dentistry degree in Heidelberg, she and her husband Henning decided to take a sabbatical from everyday life. Together they hiked the Appalachian Trail - 2000 kilometres along the East Coast of the United States. There, the proverbial hiking bug bit them and evoked their mutual passion for long-distance hiking. In 2017, a 6-month long-distance hike followed - this time on the Te Araroa Trail across New Zealand. This book captures their adventures experienced on the journey. Today, Melanie works as a dentist and lives with her two children and Henning in Esslingen am Neckar, Germany.