Otago Boys' High School physics teachers Alex Benson and Bill Trewern (both 65) have worked so closely together over the past 40 years, they have become like brothers.
So much so, they are even retiring together this week.
But as close as they are, they have very different ideas about what they will do in their retirement.
Mr Benson has been in the teaching profession for 42 years, nearly 40 of which have been at Otago Boys' High School.
Mr Trewern has spent his entire 43-year career at the school.
Both said retirement appeared to have sneaked up on them, and were surprised at how quickly the past four decades had passed.
Mr Trewern said he was apprehensive about retiring because school had been ''his life''.
''It will be hard to know what to do with myself.''
The former assistant principal (1994-2011), Mt Aspiring Lodge trustee (1994-2014) and school hostel manager (1980-84) said he would miss the sport at the school most.
He has coached and managed the school's rugby and basketball teams sporadically over the years, but his main claim to fame has been with the school's golf programme.
Mr Trewern said he was proud to have coached the school's golf team to second place in the World Schools Golf Tournament in St Andrews, Scotland, as well as coaching 16 former pupils who had gone on to play the sport professionally.
They included Greg Turner, Ben Gallie and Mahal Pearce.
Like many retiring teachers, Mr Trewern will never fully retire from teaching.
He plans to continue coaching golf at the school and working as director of teams for Golf Otago, as well as writing the golfing column for the Otago Daily Times.
While Mr Trewern has regarded his impending retirement with apprehension, Mr Benson has been extremely excited about his last day.
The 1989 Woolf Fisher Trust Fellowship winner has had a calendar on the back of his classroom door all year, which he has been neatly crossing off the days leading up to his retirement.
He has been itching to spend more time in his garage, where he is restoring a 1966 Sunbeam Tiger and a 1914 Veteran AC.
Despite his joy at finally being let loose, Mr Benson said he would miss the pupils and the camaraderie of his fellow staff members.
He was proud of his work, particularly the work he did tutoring at the Dunedin College of Education alongside his work at Otago Boys, and the work he did on a teaching fellowship in 1980 at the University of Otago Physics Department.
It was there that he created physics kitsets for poorly resourced schools, so that pupils could do physics experiments.
''I'll miss the regularity of getting up and going to work each day. I'll miss some of the kids. I'll even miss the four flights of stairs I walk up several times a day to my classroom.''
