Well we had a great day in the surf on Sunday. How quickly July has flown.
We had two beautiful days of sun and surf for Saturday and Sunday.
We even kicked up our heals and headed into Byron Bay for "the OLD SPICE BOYS" concert. The band consists of a guy on a drum, a guy with a ukulele and a kazoo and a guy with a one string box bass. They played everything from Miles Davis to Prince's KISS. We saw them at the RAILs, a cool covered, yet outdoor, bar with 55-gallon drum fires to warm you up between sets. It was like we were hobos at the railway station listening to some good tunes.
Ian originally saw these Old Spice guys on the internet and they live here in Byron Bay. Yippee.

Now we are heading out for a camping adventure to Minnie Water. It's a beach with a campground that has free firewood. The surf should be good. Then we hopefully will head down to Scott's Head. THat's where I love to surf.
Ta for now!

cat
between boulders and sharps
evans head
ju and the old spice boys

Nose
Sandy
Storefront
Sniffing
Byron

Down Under 2006
So we made it to the the land down under.
Leno, Fred, Kelly and Shane picked us up from the airport. What a treat.
Virgin Airlines.
Warm and sunny weather. We made it the water for a nice surf. Sunny and warm water. What a great Monday.
Tuesday, well, it was a beautiful surf in the afternoon. Blue skies, sunny wether and nice waves.
Wednesday...It rained and rained and it was a bit windy.The surf was big, but too stormy.
Thursday...
Fred picked up Ash (that's ASHLEY, FRED's son), from school and we went for a surf at the PASS. It was raining when we ran out to surf and sunny when we all went in to go home. Fun, fun, fun.
Toodles and ta,
Talk to ya later,
Ju and Ian

Well it is our last night here in New Zealand. We have been in Waihi Beach for the last five days. No swell, and lots of rain. Beautiful hillside and beach views. Great place, we love it!

We have enjoyed Waihi Beach and the great Top Ten Campervan Park. This place is GREAT. They have heated floors in the bathroom and in the kitchen and dining room facilities. Not to mention we basically have the place to ourselves.

We will always have Waihi and I am sure we will return here sometime in the future. Maybe when they have some surf.

New Zealand has been nice, but we are thrilled to get on that plane to Australia. Oh, the warm weather and the super warm water that is waiting for us. We will arrive in Sydney on Sunday and spend one night at the Hotel Ibis. We will have the afternoon and evening to visit Sydney. Then we will fly up to Lennox Head on Monday.

Toodle loo,
G Day and Right Ho!
Julianne

My next favorite thing to do besides jumping on the jumping pillow is watching Ian jump on it as well. This is way cooler than a trampoline. Check out jumpingpillows.com, they do have them in the U.S. I want one for our backyard.
Note: the yellow pole is behind him, not holding him up.










A rainbow over the sea. We get to see these rainbows almost everyday! If we paddle out , maybe we will find that pot of gold.

We also walked around in some old gold mines. It was pretty funny because we didn't carry a flashlight and so we fumbled around and used the camera to light up our way. The above photos are the same entrance from inside and from across the river. Tomorrow we will return with a flashlight and some extra rope. On top is a modern day gold mine called Martha. It just stopped producing gold this week! and will be filled with water in a few years to make a very deep lake. The other photo is of the river that runs through the gorge and was used to produce power for the mining and refining equipment a hundred years ago.

Today we went for a walk around an old gold mining area. Here we are walking through a railway tunnel that is over 1 kilometer long.

These are of our walk our first day in Waihi Beach.

This is a sheep looking at Julianne as we drove across the North Island to Waihi Beach.

Friday, June 30
We landed in Aukland, got our van, and drove to Raglan by noon. Kept seeing these signs that say, "Stop Sea Bed Mining." Surf looked great. Picture perfect. But maybe 1 out of 10 waves was being ridden successfully with 2-6 guys dropping in on every wave. Too fast or maybe too offshore. So we drove down the coast on a gravel road towards the next town. On the way the beachbreaks were very large and breaking way out to sea. Road got really muddy and I was nervous we might get stuck. Saw 5 cars the whole way. Finally we arrived in Kawhia (kar-fee-uh). Very small town on a huge bay. Stopped at the bar and found that the tow in surfers had just left that morning. They had been towing into the waves that broke across the sandbar at the bay's entrance. Went to campground. We were the only guests. Went back to the bar and had frozen pizza and Ju had a few raw oysters. Bed at 8.

Saturday, July 1
Slept till 11. Breakfast at a cafe. The only customers. Town population is around 500. Went to museum. Lady talked to us about where the go next and we didn't really see much of the museum. Found out that sea bed mining is when they suck all the iron out of the sand and leave the rest. They take the iron Asia and turn it into steel. Across the bay from Kawhia they fill up a huge ship 8 times a year with this iron. Also across the bay is Maori land that has better surf than Raglan. The tow in guys originally went over there until they found how good the entrance was. I heard all this from the lady at the museum.
Also she tried to talk us into taking another crazy drive down the coast to another small town. Then she started raving about the east coast and the Coromandel. She and her husband had a caravan at a place called Waihi (why-hee) and loved it there. We drove and got some fuel and a newspaper.%