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.

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…

Well today we made an attempt to get in to the Christmas spirit by buying a little Christmas tree. It looks quite cute but I still can’t see it as Christmas when it’s at least 25′C and I walk around in shorts and thongs. Nothing bad about nice weather but it doesn’t match with my version of Christmas. I’ve started and unfortunately stopped playing beach volley the last few weeks after another dislocated shoulder on Thursday but a few hours at the Alfred Hospital and some funny drugs later it’s back in place again and I’m waiting for a time to see a specialist to discuss a possible operation to fix it once and for all…

I’ve just installed the new version of wordpress and everything seems fine except the fact that my photo album doesn’t work any more. I don’t think it’s a major problem but I’m not sure what little thing I have to change to get it going again…

Otherwise everything is fine, it’s getting pretty hot here with quite a few days over 30′C already, but I guess everyone back home in Sweden would love to have sun and 30′C so maybe I shouldn’t complain too much

I kite-board as much as I can, and try to get down the coast a couple of times a month to surf and every Thursday night I meet up with a group of people and have a hit of beachvolley as a bit of fun (bec’s coming down on Thursday as well to have a go) well now I’m gonna see what I can make for dinner and then maybe we’ll have a Swedish DVD night as a package from my parents with a bunch of DVD’s just arrived. (I have to get Bec’s Swedish up to scratch somehow