11/12/12: Driving and op-shopping.

This is a short one.  Basically, I had a fabulous time doing a bunch of op-shopping in Wanganui and then op-shopped my way down to Wellington.  If you're passing by Foxton during the day and you have some spare time, I recommend looking around the main street. Awesome second-hand shops.

I got back to Wellington in time for band practice, but actually, it was more drink practice since it was such nice weather out.  Then as I was walking home from Newtown (half cut), I stopped in and bought myself some groceries from the new Countdown.  I was impressed that I had been able to go into a place that sells cigarettes while drunk and not buy cigarettes.  Go me!

Atene Skyline Track, Whanganui National Park

This happened on Monday.  I had the day free to try out my boots and I was told about this day-walk by one of the nice ladies at the iSite in Wanganui.  She warned be that there was a lot of uphill climbing   and added: "but that should be no problem for a young fit man like you."

"Fit."  Hmm.  We would see about that.

Anyway, here's the walk.  It's supposed to take between 6 - 8 hours.  It climbs up to the Atene ridge and then along it.  The geographical interest is the loop of old river bed.  You see, what happened was that the Whanganui used to go through this valley and then it found a quicker way to get to where it was going by punching through a hill.  That means now theres a dry river bed in the shape of a horse shoe and my walk was going to give all sorts of views of it.  Anyway, here's the walk:

And here are some pictures from the walk.  I must have brought all my vintage cameras with me.

This character was snuffling around me as I was putting on my boots at the start of the track.

There were a lot of wild goats.  Big ones, little ones, middle-sized ones.  One time I walked around a corner of the track and there was a mummy goat and a baby goat.  The mummy goat looked terrified to see me but the baby goat came bounding right up to me, bleating like a maniac.  Being me, I got freaked out that the mummy goat was going to come and smash me to protect the baby goat so I jumped into a tree.  "Go away baby goat!"  I yelled at it.  

This isn't the baby goat from the story, but it is an equally baby goat.

The panorama below shows the old river path. It's now farmland.

I got back to the car only five and a half hours after I left it.  That's quicker than the 6-8 hours they said it would take.  I am fit!!  

Sunday Stuff.

Hungover from the party the night before (I remember saying at some point "Man, I haven't been really pissed in ages!  I'm going to relaly try to get super-drunk tonight!".  Idiot.), I wasn't in the mood for smoking cigarettes, that's for damn sure.

Logan, Stephanie and I drove hither and thither because the day was lovely.  We spent time at Bunnings and the Warehouse, FYI.  We lunched at Island Bay with fish'n'chips, which is where and when I took this snap:

In the evening Steph and I were getting packed to drive to Wanganui and I couldn't find my cigarettes.  But I thought "Sod it."  I wasn't going to buy more.  This would mean that I was going to have a day without cigarettes and I liked the idea of that.  And this was the first day in a long time that I had not smoked a cigarette.  Stay tuned.  This is truly riveting stuff.

Ps.  Yes, second entry today.  I'm trying to catch up.  Tomorrow I will bring you Moonday and Chooseday.

Boots

Saturday was my first day of my holidays.

I went tramping-boot-shopping with Logan and I bought these tramping boots:

I won't say how much they were because I don't want to make my bank account cry.  Rest assured I will be trying to use them as much as possible this summer.

Here they are again, this time on my feet:

As soon as I got them I wanted to try them out so me and Logan went out and walked the Eastern Walkway which is at the south end of the Mirimar Peninsula.  You get awesome views like this and this.

After that I picked up my girlfriend Stephanie from the bus station and we went to John's party.  Here is a picture of John (taken by Claire Tane and used completely without permission) from that night:

This night was the last time I smoked a cigarette.

That's it, damnit.

I'm a teacher.  That's not what this is all about but it is something you need to know.  Background information.

This last Friday (December the 7th?) was my last day of teaching for the year.  I don't really "party" that hard when I'm in a school term because I find teaching so full on that I really need both days of the weekend to just chill out before another five-day onslaught.  However, I am now at the end of my first year of teaching and I have six weeks to chill out.  Basically, I want to really make the absolute most of those six weeks.  That's why I've decided to blog about the six weeks. So that I can remember what I actually did.  If I have to write about every day then I'll want to make every day interesting enough to write about.  That's my way of making my holidays fun.  But here's the twist: I'm also giving up smoking.

I'm giving up smoking.

I'm not sure if this has much meaning to many people but for me it's quite a big deal.  So what I'm really trying to do with this blog is to try and do interesting things every single day of my holiday SO THAT I DON'T HAVE TO SMOKE.  Because smoking makes me do nothing.  Smoking cigarettes is stupid and pointless and I've decided that I no longer WANT to smoke cigarettes and that I no longer NEED to smoke cigarettes.  So here goes.

I don't know if I will be able to do this.  The only reason I've even been able to type this is because I haven't had a cigarette in 3 days and that's the longest i've been without a cigarette in years.  I'm still pretty nervous about the whole thing.

So anyway, this blog for the next 5 weeks will be devoted to all the things that are not smoking cigarettes.  It'll be everything that I have been doing and how healthy AND FIT I am feeling.  That's another thread that will be all through this blog as the summer progresses. My fitness.  In fact, I'm going to make a list:

- giving up smoking cigarettes
- partying a lot (without smoking cigarettes)
- getting a tan!
- Stephanie moving in.  (my girlfriend is moving in and I'll probably mention it)
- keeping fit  (and talking about my new tramping boots)
- the amazing places I am visiting
- walks that I am doing.
- any op-shopping that I manage to get done.
- maybe a little on any music stuff that I'm doing that I think is awesome.
- my facial hair (probably.  cos it's pretty awesome and experimental)

It's wednesday morning now.  But I have Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday to recap.  I will do this in the morning.  Right now, It's time for bed.   Sorry about the text-based entry.  It'll start getting more pictury from tomorrow.

xo Anthony

PS.  To you who are reading this, you are probably one of a very small amount of people who are reading this so any encouraging comments are very welcome.  Don't be shy!  Just a quick "you can do it"  would be enough.  Though there are points for originality.

Moving into my new room.

My nonsense gets printed for the first time.

A complete misunderstanding led to my nonsense-writing taking up a two-page spread at the start of last week's Canta magazine. And with this strange turn of events, the Weasel dances on to the printed page for the first time. Unfortunately I don't have a scanner so I can't scan the pages and post them up, but fortunately the Canta folk also put my nonsense up on their website. Here's the link to it.

http://canta.co.nz/letters/192/

Go in peace now.