Hello everyone!
We got out of auckland because we didn't really like the place that we were staying. So we are now in a camp site in Whananaki and it is pretty sweet here. Except we can't get on the internet too much and we don't have any cell phone reception. We will be moving on Jan 5th to Pihia to a really nice hostel and we will have lots of internet and cell phone reception. And its free for us to reaceive calls from canada I'll put our number on here on the 5th. We have lots to post because we have been really busy fishing and snorkling and jumping off building and stuff. Anyways we are having fun and we will be the first people in the world to celebrate the new year! So we'll get the party started for everyone! Hope everyone had a good christmas And have a happy new year!

Well today is our last day in Piha. We are heading out to Waiheke Island for the weekend, to do a wine tour and I want to do some kayaking or snorking so I hope we get the chance. After that we are going to be in the city of Auckland we are not really looking forward to being in Auckland away from the beach. But we are only there for 2 weeks so I'm sure we'll stay busy. The pic is of Geoff and Kels and I on the deck at the hostel.

I had a really good time today too. Geoff took the good long board that I was learning with on a trip for the weekend so I had to use a shorter slimmer board that was really hard to get up on. So as you can see kels got some sweet wipe out pics!! Haha I had fun though I just like playing in the waves its so much fun!

Whats going on. As you can see we finaly got some pics of us surfing unfortunatly it wasn't the best day, the surf wasn't so good. But we still had a really good time. Even though the waves were a bit small they still have a lot of power and carry you in really quickly! Kels had a lot of fun and made it home without drinking half the ocean which is always a plus!

After our hike Kels talked the lifeguards into taking us out in the IRBs (inflatable rescue boat) so we got some sweet pics. The waves are so big when you get out past the break tehy look like walls coming toward you. They are like 10 feet no lie. and our driver was insane! The boat I was in actualy caught so much air at one point that the motor was out of the water! it was a good time though. You can really see how big the waves get here in the picture with kels and today the waves were smaller than usual! We are going back to surf tomorrow so I hope we can get some sweet pics of that. Later.

We had a pretty busy day today we hiked down to this beach that you can only go to at low tide. It was sweet we were the only ones there with our friends from england.

The pics of kels and I are taken infront of whats called the key hole. its a hole in the middle of a mountain about 6 feet wide 40 m long. Geoff took me through it on the boat the day I was helping out as a life guard. we only had about a foot of room on either side of the boat it was crazy.

Neat picture eh! well there is a good story to go along with this one.
This is a stream that runs through the back yard at the hostel. and I was moving all those rocks to build a damn cause it looks cool.
So I was going to put that pipe through the middle to help some water flow through. But first I needed to clean it out. so I was taking out all the sticks and rocks and stuff and then I grabbed one stick that was a few inches thick and it swam out of my hand!!
It was an eel! about 2.5 feet long in less than a foot of water scared the hell out of me.

The picture of the waterfall Kerekere water fall its about 10 min drive away there is another waterfall that looks similar called KiteKite and its 14 min run away from us. I like kitekite better.

The picture of kels is is a sweet pic we went for a 3 hour hike today up the mountain behind our hostel and we ended up walking beside this stream for a while and all these trees had fallen over to make bridges it was pretty cool.

At one point we wanted to take a break and we sat on a rock by the stream and Kels looked over into the stream and saw a eel that was about a foot and a half long in 10 inches of water. It was crazy! Geoff told us we should have caught it cause they taste pretty good smoked.

CONGRATS TO TERRANCE AND SARAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I hope mom and baby are doing well!

Hahaha these birds live behind our house there are 4 of them 2 babies they are really funny they pick up their food with there feet and bring it too thier mouths and they can't fly very well at all they kinda crash when they try to land I like chasing them. hahaha. They are called Pukeko birds

So kels and I were hiking and we came across this water fall and it had a nice pool at the bottom so I decided to jump in. It was so cold I froze my poor little butt but not as much as you suckers in Canada hahaha

Kels started to get home sick so she dicided to make herself a sand-angel all that she got accomplished however was sand down her pants. hahaha

This here is a picture of lion rock you can hike all the way to the top. It should look like a lion and its got a rabbit in its paws. The sand is black here because of all the iron in it.

This is a picture of PIha beach Kels and I hiked up the mountain behind the place we are staying and took this picture. This is also the beach that we have been surfing

Dec. 12, 2006

Well I finally did it! I can now ride a surf board the proper way. I may have swallowed half the ocean but I did it! Matt is doing really well, he has been catching a lot of waves. We went out yesterday for about 3 hours and today we needed a break because as per usual matt is a little sun burnt and so am I. Oh and I was really excited today because Geoff bought a christmas tree! It's still really weird to look out the window and not see any snow...

The other day we also visited a beach near by called Karekare beach. It was really windy and the waves were huge! This beach is famous because they have filmed many movies here.

This weekend we are headed to Waiheke island which is a 30min ferry ride from Auckland. We are planning on doing a wine tour and checking out some of the beaches.