IN A well-used pocket-sized diary, scrawls of pencil mark Andy Eastcott's busy schedule.
One day there's his gravity gym session and tramping club meeting, the next is a three-hour walk with the Lake City Marathon Walking group.
The following day he's off to Tirau for a meeting of the Artists on Main co-operative which he exhibits through, and then Saturday is a planned cycle ride from Atiamuri to Whakamaru before heading to Ohope with the tramping club on Sunday.
It's an impressive schedule for anyone, much less a septuagenarian.
It's not an exceptional week for the retired dentist and microbiologist. And it's missing a few other commitments.
There's no mention of his volunteer work with the Department of Conservation, his involvement with Forest and Bird and the Green Party or his work with the Rotorua Little Theatre.
He puts it quite simply - "I love life".
Retirement hasn't been a time to put his feet up - far from it.
He and a growing bunch of fellow seniors are reinventing what old age means.
And by his definition, it's far from a time to slow down.
For Andy, it's been a case of growing into his retirement. He admits the first wee while wasn't easy - having to seek help from the doctor and get "happy pills" to help cope with the adjustment.
But with an ever-increasing schedule, those got thrown out the window and replaced with the natural high that the jam-packed schedule brought with it.
It was only moving to Rotorua that spurred him to walk his first marathon, inspired by the late Colin Smyth.
"Moving to Rotorua, that made the difference."
His first 42.2km lap around the lake for the Rotorua Marathon was completed at the age of 75, he clocked up his second this year.
Andy had a goal of under seven hours for his first, completing it in 6.53. His time this year was 6.55.
"When I told my brother the time, he said I was getting old, slowing down," he laughs.
Then he notched up his first Tough Guy Challenge - slogging his way through the 6km not once, but twice.
Not content with those achievements, he is now in training for the Tarawera Trail 50km in November.
His goal is to do the marathon and tough guy challenge each year, for as long as he can.
"I had to drop bowls. I was the men's junior single champion and I had to stop because I can't fit it all in."
He laughs when asked his secret to such an active and packed retirement schedule.
"Marry a wife nearly 20 years your junior. You can write that. She's my inspiration."
Andy says his intention was to work to 75, but wife Ann made him retire six years ago.
"When you work, you focus on one task 8am to 5pm ... it's very segmented. "Once you retire you can do lots of different things."
As well as his physical activities, he's thrown himself into his new-found love of painting.
He's finished well over 100 paintings, exhibits many, and has sold more than two dozen.
Bone carving, building looms and stitching 39 quilts all feature on the CV too.
"I look at life and see what I have. You can do anything you put your mind to."
That attitude of making the most of life and not sitting around waiting for things to happen rings true with fellow retiree Robhan Elkins.
"When I retired I sat and relaxed for a few months and all my muscles had collapsed."
Now the 68-year-old is keeping busy - walking, aquajogging, writing poetry - there's always something to keep her busy.
For her, it's been about maintaining that sense of social interaction.
"When you retire you realise how small your world is and when people start dying it gets smaller and smaller."
She loves getting out with the two different walking groups and meeting new people.
"You have to get out and make those links. I don't wake up in the morning and think what am I going to do today.
"My father said to me once I'm so busy in retirement that I wondered what I did when I worked. I feel a bit that way."
While retirement is still relatively new for Robyn Huston, she's determined not to let it go to waste.
At 69-years-old, Robyn is a month into her new life as a retiree after calling time on a 33-year stint with the BNZ.
With her 70th birthday looming in October, Robyn says the intention was always to finish up this year - and several things including a three-week European trip meant the time was right to leave.
For Robyn, retirement isn't about picking up new passions, more about finding time for the ones she has.
She runs three times a week, takes pump class another three days and then there's the Sunday walking group.
One day a week she plans to volunteer for Riding for the Disabled - something she's done a few days a year but can now dedicate more time to without the pressure of work.
"I always said when I left work I'd give them a day a week."
She's looking forward to not having to schedule leave for the school's grandparent days, and having the freedom to head out on the boat if it's a fine day, without having to wait until the weekend.
"I can do what I like when I like."
It was a "heat of the moment" idea that led Luke Martin to finding himself trekking through the Himalayas at 69.
He'd been retired for a couple of years, and was at a friend's 70th birthday when the friend suggested they should go to Nepal and do the trek.
"In the heat of the moment I said 'what a good idea'. The next morning we were planning it."
A group of three of them did the 21-day trek, from the base camp at Annapurna 4200m above sea level.
"We had a couple of lazy days at the start and end and the rest was basically up hill, down vale. It was climbing rocky steps most of the way."
In the party of 12, with three guides and three porters, Luke was the second eldest.
"We chomped our way up the hills. We'd go up for four or five hours then go down again. It was very physical but we got ourselves pretty fit."
He admits that he never imagined he would be taking on such a challenge just before his 70th birthday.
"It was spectacular scenery and a sense of achievement. We have done it, we've knocked it off."
The stoicism of the Nepalese people was a highlight, as well as the scenery.
"We had a lot of laughter. The food was terrible - we lived on dhal. And you couldn't drink the water. It was a real experience, an eye opener."
Luke says he believes his trek is part of a changing culture of retirees packing more in.
"Definitely. I look back at my father's age ... half of them gave up living at 65. Well I didn't retire until I was 67."
Following retirement he helped build a house, did physical work for a son and even now, in his early 70s, attends the gym three times a week.
"It's all there to be done and I'm not done yet."