The most amazing item on this list is now done.

3 days and 32km later we have completed the Routeburn track, one of New Zealand's 9 great walks.

We had amazing weather and no words can truly due the scenery or trip justice so here's a pic collage. More photos and video to follow.

Ride in a helicopter. Tick.

What better place to do it than in Queenstown and on a beautiful day. Added benefit was going to the top of the Remarkables (6,000ft) And getting out. Spectacular.

A big thank you to Kyle for making this one happen.

Re-read 3 books from high school. Done!

I enjoy reading but can recall the days of high school where I had to read books I would not have otherwise selected.

When it came to this challenge a lot of books came to mind, but I wanted to get a bit of diversity in there so I choose:

Anna Karenina by Tolstoy
To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

They could not have been more different and with no necessity to read them, they were not without challenges. Anna Karenina was LONG (the ebook version I was reading was over 1500 pages!). Their Eyes Were Watching God is written in a dialect, so I often found myself almost reading aloud in order to get into the swing of reading the book.

Overall I thoroughly enjoyed the books. Each had qualities I loved. I'm trying to find some old essays I would have wrote on these books in school as I would love to see how 10+ years has changed my perspective on them.

I'll leave you with a few of my favorite quotes...

“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view... Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.” - To Kill A Mockingbird

“Real courage is when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.” - To Kill A Mockingbird

“There are years that ask questions and years that answer.” - Their Eyes Were Watching God

“Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the same horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time" - Their Eyes Were Watching God

“Pheoby, yuh got tuh go there tuh know there. Yo' papa and yo' mama and nobody else can't tell yuh and show yuh. Two things everybody's got tuh do fuh theyselves. They got tuh go tuh God and they got tuh find out about livin fuh theyselves.” - Their Eyes Were Watching God

Volunteer : Tick.

I opted to do a beach clean up as my act of volunteering. As I live on an island (albeit a rather large island), I think it's important to protect our coastlines. I love going to the beach and the last thing you want to see when you're playing in the sand is a bunch of trash.

So yesterday I joined a clean up effort which focused on Takapuna Beach on Auckland's North Shore. The clean up was organised/hosted by Sustainable Coastlines which is a charity focusing on NZ beaches and foreshores. Admittedly at a first glance anyone would think the beach was clean. I certainly did. But it's surprising what you can find when you take a deeper look. I found lots of bottle caps and cigarette butts. But I also found empty beer/wine bottles, 2 used and broken flipflops (or jandals as we call them in New Zealand), a condom (gross!), a lighter and several kids toys. It definitely has me thinking about when I bring drinks to the beach in future to ensure that my bottle caps or tops are properly collected rather than just winding up rubbish on the beach.

At the end I probably had roughly 1.5-2kg (3-4.5 lbs) worth of stuff in my bag and I was one of about 20 people cleaning up the beach.

Watch a sunrise from One Tree Hill. Tick.

Ok, technically we weren't up on the hill (we drove into the park and it was still early enough that the barrier to the summit was still up so you couldn't drive up). As it was also a workday morning we were worried we might run out of time if we tried to walk up as the true sunrise wasn't until about 7:25.

This provided us (Matt) also with a chance to play with the GoPro in anticipation of our big hike next week. He even put together a little timelapse video of us watching the sunrise. As you can see, having the camera mounted to a moving object (aka his head) wasn't perfect, but I like the video nonetheless.

So it's from Cornwall Park (aka, the bottom of One Tree Hill). Again more photos in manual mode. I'm working on it....

So the latest accomplishment on the 30 before 30: Go to a movie by myself

This is another one which I have had interesting feedback about. For many people, going to a movie by yourself is no big deal.

However, I think this scene from an episode of Sex and the City sums up my feelings

Charlotte: What did you do last night?
Carrie: Went to a movie
Charlotte: With who?
Carrie: Myself.
Charlotte: On date night?!? I would just think that all the people would be looking at me thinking “That poor pathetic girl…”

To me someone at the movies alone stands out. Even though you have so little interaction with the people around you, going to the movies is still something that is incredibly social in my eyes. Sharing popcorn, grabbing the person next to you in a scary scene, etc…

I’ve realised as I’m getting older that I need to be comfortable with who I am. Me and only me. Not being influenced on how people around me see me. I think this is a challenge for a lot of people though and part of this list is all about challenging myself. This item fits the bill.

So, cue going to the movies by myself.

I took the recent opportunity of being a nigel-no mates to go to the movies on my own while out of town on a business trip. Truth be told, I wasn’t dying to see any of the movies showing, but thought I needed to seize the opportunity. I decided to see a kiwi (made in NZ) film called Mt. Zion. The film surrounds the hunt for finding the band to open for Bob Marley during his 1979 Auckland concert and one kids dream of doing it. Of course no dream would be complete with out opposition (his parents) or challenges (being a poor Maori potato farmer in South Auckland). Overall, I really actually enjoyed the film. The young kid was played by Stan Walker who won Australian Idol. No doubt the kid can sing and I found myself rocking out to the music of the film. Temuera Morrison, better known for his roles as Jake the Muss (Once Were Warriors) and of course Boba Fett in Star Wars, was fantastic in his fatherly role.

So tick, movie on it’s own completed and a new movie recommendation out there for those looking for something entertaining to watch.

So today was Round the Bays and one of the most satisfying things (so far) I've crossed off my list.

As you know, I've been sick this week. Well, truth be told, I'm still not feeling hot and I've been quite concerned what state I would be in for this race.

Well, this list is about commitment and so to that end, we left Penny's birthday party early last night to ensure a good nights rest and I awoke to a glorious day. Beautiful sunshine and hardly a cloud in the sky. Breakfast was 2 pieces of toast with peanut butter, a banana and some canteloupe (and a small cup of coffee). Peter kindly drove me down to the train and I should have realized with the number of people on the train and already waiting at Ellerslie station what I was in for. I started to head for the starting line about 10 minutes before it started.

WOW! Talk about a lot of people. I mean a lot. Even with weaving in and out and around I couldn't seem to get closer to the start line as fast as the clock was ticking down. I finally decided to just go with it and wait for it to start and my first group help me push me forward.

The road was split into walkers and runners. Except there were LOADs of people walking and even pushing strollers in the runners side. By the time I cross the start line it had already been 10 minutes since the race started!

9:38, almost 10 minutes after the race starts, and I'm still not at the starting line. At least I can now see it.

The race started off with me feeling like I was in a game of frogger. Continuously dodging walkers or slow runners (or trees in an attempt to run around the walkers). It wasn't until almost Okahu Bay before things begin to open up and the road was a little less crowded.

I gave myself about 4 1 minute or so walk breaks, but otherwise managed to run most of it. And I feel great for it. By the time I saw the finish I was pumping, but also conscious my feet were beginning to really hurt. But it didn't matter. When I crossed the finish line and saw 10:35 I immediately knew I had hit my goal of doing it in under an hour. What a great feeling it was.

The other side of the finish line

Out the other side And unfortunately I was right. While I was running I did get blisters....

But somehow the pain is all worth it.....

So Round the Bays is up this weekend.....only problem is I'm sick!

When arriving home from Australia, I was great by a lovely, but not feeling well husband.

As you should share all things in a marriage, he so kindly shared his illness with me and BAM! it's a doosy. I suppose i should have known this given that he never get's sick. I mean never. In the 8 or so years we have been together he's been sick maybe once? Not even like a stay in bed sick - more like an "I've got the sniffles" sick.

In any event what this means is that I'm quite concerned for my race. It's only 8.5km but I struggled just walking from the train station to work yesterday!

Hopefully rest and recoup will do me some good. My goal is to do it in under an hour. I am hoping that is achievable, but really doing any racer as a non-runner is an achievement I think.

To give you an indication of what I'm in for....little old me amongst 40,000 runners and 70,000 participants!

And the route can be found here: http://www.roundthebays.co.nz/assets/pdf/rtb_map_route.pdf