People

The cool thing about the AT is that anyone can do it. There are a lot
of people in their 20s and 30s but also a lot of retired couples,
women in their 50s hiking alone, a 6 year old did it once as well as a
blind man and I ran into an 86 year old trying to redo his own record
as the oldest person ever to hike the whole thing.

This is "Kea", one of the guys I've been hiking with. He is from New
Zealand. He's pretty interesting. He doesn't own a house or a car or
many posesions at all. He just saves up money and hikes around the
world. He told me stories about hiking in Spain, Russia, Tibet, etc.
I've been helping him with our birds and trees that we meet. He's been
telling me about all of the cool birds in NZ, an island with only 2
species of bats as their sole native mammal. As a result many of their
birds lost the ability to fly because it wasn't needed to escape
predators. However, since humans arrived and brought cats, rats,
possums and stuff like that many birds have become extinct or
endangered. However, as Kea put it, NZ is still " an island of birds,
mate"!