Well it’s been a very long time since anything happened here…

Just had a really nice week off work over Christmas. Christofer and Beatrice, two of my really good friends from Sweden were here for 5 days. We had a nice day at Healesville Sanctuary checking out all the native animals, and a day in the city. We then spent 2 days on “the great ocean rd” including some wild koala encounters, surfing lessons, a stay on a farm out in the Aussie bush lands and of course quite a few scenic photo stops. Bea and Christofer then spent Christmas eave with us out on Bec’s parents farm before they headed of to Sydney, and we went to Ballarat to hang out with Bec’s dad’s side of the family for Christmas and boxing day.

I’ve just put some photos up from our trip to Byron Bay and I noticed that Flickr (the online photo application I use) now also supports videos, so I have uploaded some videos from Bec’s and my honeymoon in Africa as well…

We had a great week in Byron Bay, we stayed in a cabin at Belongil Beachouse mostly just relaxing and enjoying a week away. I went surfing every day with the last two being the best, and it was great to swap the 13′C water in Victoria to the 21′C waves in Byron. Our friends Tess and Nye came down from Brisbane and stayed Saturday night, and on Sunday we went up to Brisbane and watched Nye and the others in “Timbah” play an afternoon gig

Last week I handed in my last (hopefully) paperwork to Immigration to get my permanent visa here in Australia, so now I just have to wait until they get back to me. Hopefully we don’t get called in for an interview because I’ve had enough off all the work involved in all this visa business. It might take a while before I hear anything though as it stated on the paperwork I received that they aim to complete 75% off the applications within 6 months…

On Saturday I went down past Torquay with Tony (a mate from TAFE) for some surfing, it was a great day with heaps of waves around. We had our first surf at Point Addis with some nice 4ft+ waves and after some fish n chips we met up with Matt and tim who went down the night before, Tony and Matt had a good surf with me behind the camera catching them getting a few nice ones and getting pounded by a solid 6 wave set…

Tomorrow morning Bec and I are heading off to Byron bay for a weeks holiday, I’ve just finished packing (11 o’clock the night before) and the alarm goes of at 5 tomorrow morning. It will be great to go away for a week and just take it easy, we haven’t really planned anything but hopefully I’ll get some good surf…

Today I finally had a chance to test out my new kite. On Thursday i went down and pumped up the 14m on the beach but there wasn’t much wind. I managed to launch it with some help and by running upwind at the same time, and once in the air it actually had some power but we’ll see another day what it actually can do. Today the wind was around 18-21knots (according to the reports from fawkner beacon out in port Phillip bay) and I pumped up my 10m to see how it would perform. Unfortunately today was also the coldest day of the year so far with around 7′C, and the fact that it was raining didn’t really help.

After some small problems self launching the kite I got it up and was quite surprised by the amount of power in it, once on the water I could go upwind pretty much as well as the only other guy out there who was riding a 12m crossbow which is exactly the kite I’ve been using up until now. I could also get some descent air so the performance seems to be almost up there with my 2m larger crossbow. I think I didn’t have enough pressure in the leading edge though, so I had the kite turn crash and turn into an eight on the water but I got it up in the air again after a little while. The leading edge is quite a bit thinner than the crossbow so it’s probably pretty important to get enough pressure in it.

I’m not too excited about the valves on the struts though, they work very well when you pump it up by completely stop any air from leaking out during pumping but to let the air out a pin needs to be inserted into them, and as the pin should not be left in there it’s hard to get all the air out and pack the kite down to as small as it could be but I might come up with a trick to solve this.

Over all I’m pretty happy, but VERY cold after not even an hour on the water.

Today I got the delivery of my two new kites from wind-x. I ordered a 14m and a 10m, the 14 is going to be my light wind kite and the 10 is planned to replace my old 12m crossbow. They are the new Ultra-flat design developed by the Legaignoux brothers’ that has come up with most ideas behind the kites that are used today in kite-surfing. Because of the flatter design a smaller kite are able to have more power as more of the kite actually catches the wind, so hopefully the 10m will have as much power as the 12m bow-kite I’m using now. The quality looks good so now I’m hoping for some wind so I can test them out, unfortunately the forecast for the next few days doesn’t look very good at all…

I’ve become an agent for wind-x here in Melbourne/Victoria so if they perform as well as the reports I’ve read on the internet there should hopefully be some interest for them as the price will be pretty competitive compared to many other brands out there.

I’ve uploaded some photos from our week in WA, you can check them out at Flickr until I get my photo album up and running again

- Update -
The photo album is now working again and can be reached through the “Photos” link on the left hand side. I’ve also put some more photos up.

It’s our last full day here in WA and luckily the 39′C heat that was forecasted has not happened, instead it’s around 30 wich is a lot nicer. Yesterday Bec and I went out to Rottnest Island which was really nice, it’s an island about 30 min from freemantle via ferry and you can’t bring a car so you hire a bike and cruisa around to all the nice beaches. Unfortunately yesterday was the only day without sun for the whole time we’ve been here so it wasn’t as good as we had hoped and I couldn’t get any nice photos snorkelling around the reeves as it’s too dark when it’s cloudy, but I saw some nice fish and we had a great day anyway, and last night I also got my first proper kite surf in after a week of crappy wind. Today the girls are away on a little trip and I’m just relaxing at home, nursing a sore neck and waiting for the wind to pick up so I can get out with my kite again for a last time before we head back to Melbourne tomorrow afternoon.

We have now had 5 Days around Perth in WA, and it looks like tomorrow we might finally have a bit of a cooler day as the forcast is “only” 31′C. Against all info I got before we left we haven’t had a single seabreeze yet but hopefully tonight I’ll be able to get out on my kiteboard after 5 days straight of NE (offshore) winds. Bec and I went down to Margaret River, about 2,5h south of Rockingham where our friends live, for three days, looking at a few caves and enjoying the really nice beaches. We are now back in Rockingham and just about to hit the beach. Tomorrow we’re off to Rottnest Island a 30 min boatride from Perth for a nice day of snorkelling and relaxing. Well we better head down to the beach before I die of a heat stroke…

In a few hours we’ll be sitting squashed in to a plane heading west and 4-5h later we will be arriving at Perth. We’re off on a weeks holiday to relax and have fun and visit our friend Phil (Phillippa) who lives in Rockingham south of Perth. It will be great to get away and hopefully there will be some good wind so I don’t drag my kiteboard with me in vain…