While we were sitting at the end of the trail admiring Rob Roy glacier, a bold kea flew down and landed within a few feet of us. Keas are mischievous mountain parrots not to be trusted around food or personal possessions. For fun these birds tear off the rubber around windshields and fly away with unattended socks or food. After a few attempts we shooed him away and he tried to launch a sneak attack from behind us, but we caught him.

The sign on the door of Aspiring Hut said to not bring in muddy boots, so thinking nothing of it, we unassumingly left our boots outside the door. The next morning we discovered a kea had created a large hole in Steve's boot and I sustained minor damage to shoelaces. We met people throughout our whole trip that had kea stories (and nearly everybody used the adjective "cheeky"). One guy had bought a brand new single wall North Face tent and a kea put a large hole in it. D'oh.