2025. This year will include my 60th birthday. There’s a mind numbing fact to crunch.
I’m not a resolution maker. However. My buddy Rob has signed me up to his friends WhatsApp group which requires folk to do at least 30 minutes of some kind of exercise a day and post a picture of you doing it. It’s remote bullying / motivation.

So far (5 days) this is proving to be a good start to the year. My exploits won’t be as dramatic as some of the others, youngsters, but the need to do something is buzzing in my head when I wake up in the morning. I do need to shift some timber. There, I’ve written it, it’s out there rather than just knowing it in my head.  Move more, eat less will be key in my 60th year. You all have permission to bully / remind me. In fact I’d welcome the friendly poke.

Christmas and New Year have been awesome. We hooked up with the  Connolly’s and ate and drank and made merry. It was an overnight trip down from Akaroa to the little harbour here in Oamaru. Are there any other cruising boats here? Of course not. They just don’t seem to exist often this far south.

Kevin the local harbourmaster sorted us out a mooring.  Grace has been here on her own since Christmas Eve while we’ve stayed in Kakanui. We got back onto the boat yesterday and it’s been particularly windy since then. Lots of white horses out beyond the breakwater. Glad we’re tucked up. Maybe by Tuesday the southerly winds will have abated a bit and we can head down south a bit further.

We get it why there are so few other boats here. It’s a tricky place to sail. But there’s lots to do here. We spent a night at the blue penguin colony watching about 280 of them come in from the sea at dusk and waddle their sweet way to their little houses. We cycled to Duntroon and back for lunch. 110 kilometres. On electrics. Cheating? Maybe. And we’re just back from a walk / scramble / seal avoidance dance around the headland. Boy is it windy out there. Tea it is then.