One, Two, Skip a Few, What Happened to September?

I managed to skip the month of September. September has never been a good month for me. VERY strange memories of September. I can pretend I have a good September memory, but it is usually trumped by a bad one. September of 2008 felt different than any other I have ever experienced, due to the fact that I am in New Zealand, and school does not begin in September. (all of my bad memories are school/university related)

September 2008 was full of parties, friends, loneliness, running, running, hurting, netball, significant netball losses, last cast glass class, Skype, recurrence of painful skin problems, and planning for this spring season. Travis was away for the month of September, and came home on the 28th, so there wasn't any exploring with him. However, I did get to see more of the country without him: Bethells Beach one weekend with Sarah and Dragana, and hiking The Pinnacles with Paul and Caoilinn.

Travis and I went on an adventure on Saturday as a warm-up for springtime camping. We drove around the Firth of Thames, ate some fish & chips, stopped to walk around at Karangahake Gorge, and ended up at Waihi Beach. It's a really long beach. I'd love to go back when it's not cloudy.

This weekend, weather permitting, we will be heading north of Auckland (somewhere) to test our our new camping gear. We bought two sleeping bags and a 4-man tent online last week. They're not really "hiking" gear... more like "car camping" gear. Conveniently, we have a car to carry our gear around. Inconveniently, our car isn't as good on gas as we hoped. It's good we don't use the car to get around the city that often - everything we need is within walking distance. I drive to get a large load of groceries once a week (since the Lim Chhour across the street usually has dodgy, picked over crap and a null selection of western-style food. Excellent selection of Asian food, though!) Back on topic - camping. I'm really excited to head out of the city for an entire weekend of outdoor bliss. I really hope the weather cooperates.

Future posting with more regularity - I promise.