Saturday, January 23, 2016

2016 A New Year with New Adventures


Christmas breakfast treats

Once again time has just flown by in a blur of activity and fun. Its crazy to believe its already the end of Jan 2016! The adventures started at Christmas with a lovely sunny Australian family day of cooking, chilling and eating. We decided to keep the day as fun as possible so googled fun Christmas food and set about making an array of different breakfast and dinner dishes based on the festive theme. With santas, snowmen, christmas trees, reindeers shaped everything it was a super enjoyable way to celebrate. Add to that the whole heap of presents stacked under the tree and it kept us busy all day. Then as the sunset in Sydney it was time to Skype into Xmas in the UK and catch up with all my family and friends back home.

Comedy Xmas moments

Vix's creating a masterpiece

Sunshine at Xmas = awesome!
After Xmas the adventures continued with an amazing Sea Kayaking Adventure with Aussie Jas and his family (Kirsty, Tristan and Edward) who had come over for a holiday from the UK. We hired boats and cruised up the river before heading out to the estuary and taking on the incoming swell. Big storms were hitting Sydney's coastline so we didn't have to go far to find big enough waves to surf. After three hours of sun we were lucky to find an ice cream boat and grab a cold snack to finish of our boating adventure the Aussie way.

Carnegie Great Outdoors Team hit Sydney
Sea Kayaking Sydney
We decided to finish the year in style so on New Years Eve we set out to Manly for a quick surf and swim before jumping on the Manly Fireworks ferry to watch the 9pm kids fireworks. Sydney really know how to do fireworks. At 9pm every New Year they put on a big display just for the kids. This is then followed by the midnight fireworks but allows the kids to enjoy the night before its get crazy busy and hectic for the main event. We got lucky and had an epic view of the 9pm fireworks from the water before taking a drive along the coast and finding a sweet spot to watch the midnight fireworks in a prime spot. That said, Jez had an even better spot. He was pretty much under the bridge!

Surf up
Midnight fireworks
 
 Epic 9pm fireworks from the ferry
A New Year a new adventure. And this years adventures started big as Jez got me the most epic Christmas present ever kite boarding lessons. So as the New Year kicked in I took daily trips to the coast to learn how to fly and kite. Lesson 1 went crazy well and in just three hours I was up and riding and fully hooked on this new adventure sport. By the end of day 4 I was cruising around the bay trying tiny jump and transitions. Its been super fun being a beginner again and exploring and enjoying the challenge of learning a new sport. I'm excited to keep improving and learning more about riding and combining the power of the wind with boarding. An amazing sport I would recommend everyone to give a shot.
Setting up the kite
Kiteboardinglessons.com.au

Kite surfing as a storm rolls in
Loving this new sport. Thanks Jez :)
Now already three weeks into the year its time to take my flight of 2016. As I write i'm sitting on the plane with Phil, Seb and Vixs about to land in Queenstown, kayaks already loaded we can contain the excitement especially as we have just had word that the Hawea waves will be running tomorrow. Surfs up!

Stunning views as we fly into Queenstown