SUP

So money burnt a hole in our pockets and we went and bought 2 identical SUPs. We found a very enthusiastic shop who loved our van and were very keen to help us find a way of fitting two enormous boards inside it.

With a tape measure, spare roof rack strap and removal of some glass we somehow managed to fit 2 9'6" boards in the back of the van reasonably comfortably.

An added bonus is that we can stick windsurf sails on the boards if we like.

For our first session we walked the boards down to our local beach and ended up heading out at the worst time of day when the wind had picked up. Even so it was pretty good fun and a good workout.

Now off to an open air cinema for the evening.

Just in time

Phew, posted within one month of the last post... only just... standards are slipping and we've only been here 3 months!

Good job I've waited a couple of days to write a post, as last week I was feeling pretty rubbish about how much work I had on, and felt a bit swamped by it all. This week, however, it has dramatically calmed down, I've worked from home for one day so far (and Phil is working from home at the moment to due to office renos), and we've been windsurfing (on Monday), swimming (Tuesday) and once again I feel like Cottesloe is the best place to live on earth! Post-swim on Tuesday we indulged in some local fish and chips, and enjoyed this sunset (with a glass of white on the beach, naturally):

So, since the van purhase, we are yet to build a racking system - but crucially we now have all the ingredients. Just no tools. Fortunately we have friends with tools. Phil has also just pointed out that this will be considerably simpler in build style than motorhome #1 (which is going up for sale at some point soon, unless we can persuade someone to rent it from us).

Phil has also purchased the most high-tech radio I've ever seen - it incorporates a reversing camera, ipod connector, sat nav, mp3, DVD player... it pretty much is amazing. But we can't quite connect it yet (wrong parts/tools/some other excuse on Phil's part).

Bertie (the van) has been on a couple of road trips. One, down to Margaret River for a Windsurfing WA event, which was fantastic - for the windsurfing (we discovered Avalon for the first time, a great spot 1hr south of Perth) but also for the social scene. We've also just come back from a weekend trip to Lancelin again where I even braved the waves for the first time, and Phil had fun too.

I've been getting more into yoga - plenty of rooftop yoga (at 6am, requiring a 4.50am get up), so I get views such as this:

We're saving up for stand up paddle boards - next on our list of toys. We also need to find boards short enough that they'll fit in the van. Also need to pay speeding fines and the like, so this purchase may be a way off!

We're slowly but surely meeting some lovely people and making friends. There's a great bunch of mostly windsurfers from the UK, and some are out here permanently, some on a short to long term basis. Either way, it has meant that we generally always have people to windsurf with, and recognise people at the beach, which is great.

I'm trying to persuade Phil that we should get a dog. Fortunately for me, he is far more sensible than I am, and has pointed out that perhaps he should get past his 6 month probationary period first... so we will reconsider in June (unless I happen to stumble across one before then... or steal one from our local dog beach).

Otherwise think that pretty much sums up our past month. I'm off to Tasmania this weekend for a work away 'day' (it's 3 days long), and Phil is home alone on a bank holiday weekend, so is trying to find some friends to accompany him to see Metallica at the Soundwave festival on the Monday.

Lots of love to you all xxx

New Van

Just picked up our new van. Decided to go German and now have a shiney not quite new VW Transporter. In keeping with the Aussie way it came with Roo Bars and spotlights and of course it's automatic!

It seems to double up fairly well as a windsurf van and travelling salesman's car.

Birthday Weekend/Australia Day

We had Phil and Vas come over for the long weekend of my birthday and Australia Day. We started with a post work windsurf on Thursday at Dutchies in Cottesloe. Another great session and I'm now getting used to sailing back to front (on port tack).

Phil and Vas turned up at about midnight and we managed a few beers/most of a bottle of wine before we all collapsed into bed.

On Friday we headed off for Guildford to rent bikes and cycle round the Swan Valley. After a very lengthy overview of the best places to visit from our bike hire guide we were in the first winery by 12:30.

In total we managed about 4-5 vineyards, coffee tasting and cheese tasting. All finished off with drinks on the beach at sunset and a delicious dinner of peanut butter on toast.

Saturday started far too early with a train journey to Fremantle to catch the minibus to Rockingham for the kayak trip. Another beautiful WA day with a dead calm morning made the paddle to seal island pretty easy. We saw a few dolphins on the way and then there were a handful of sea lions basking in the sun on the island. Also clocked pelicans, a giant blue crab, little penguins, ospreys and lizzards (that kept trying to steal our food).

We then headed to the Little Creatures pub/brewery for a few beers and food in Fremantle before heading down to the beach in Fremantle for the Australia Day fireworks.

Yesterday we managed a lie in followed by a brilliant lazy day on the beach in true Aussie style with a cool box of beers. Oh and it was sunny too.

Great weekend and great to spend it with good friends.

Happy New Year!

Thought it was about time for an update. Apologies it's from me again - Phil will write a post soon...

It's back to work today which has come as a bit of a shock to the system. We've been on holiday since 22nd December so it was starting to feel like the whole working thing was more of a bad dream than reality, and we were very much getting used to the sun and sea lifestyle.

As the last post mentioned, the weather in Gero got hotter and hotter with no wind, so we decided to cut our losses and head back to Perth early. We then tried to make best use of the time available to us to go van hunting. This started off as a fairly exciting venture, as spending large amounts of money on toys often is, however we're still without van (having tried to play one vendor against another, and offering very low prices... to which they both said no) and are now contemplating reconsidering our hardball attitude!

The weather has been mostly pretty amazing. There was a bit of a heatwave after Christmas, and so we spent most of the mornings inside taking it easy with the air conditioning on full whack, and venturing outside for a couple of minutes at a time, before generally heading somewhere north of the CBD to go van browsing, followed by a dunk in the sea to cool off on the way back. There are worse ways to spend an afternoon...

Not much wind for the most part, but we've made the effort to go to Peli point a couple of times, and ventured south to check out Safety Bay as well. The former proved pretty good for practicing lightwind moves, and I'm finally mastering tacking, although the sudden increase in water temperature has meant that the place is swarming with (non-stinging) jellyfish. Yuck. It creeps me out more than a little bit, even though I know that they're harmless! Safety Bay was a bit light when we went there - but more lightwind exercises for us both, and I can now tack my 88l board so I'm pretty pleased. You can tell it would be an amazing spot for freestyle if it was windier as a sand spit protects a semi-lagoon from waves/chop. It does also seem to be the hang out for local speed nuts. Took about an hour to get there though (vs 15 minutes to Peli Point in the city) so not sure how often we'll go there. Checked out Woodman's Point on the way back - it's a bit closer and looked like it could also be pretty fun and flat. Loads of kiters. At some point we may have to embrace the sport... not yet though.

We've also now moved into our flat! Such a good feeling to finally be able to unpack all the boxes and suitcases, and for the amount we're paying I think we've got a bargain considering the location. It certainly wasn't the cheapest on the market - but it is about a minute's walk to a really lovely beach, so it has meant that we can take a casual stroll in the evening whilst supper is cooking. Bliss. We have a spare room now too, so looking forward to welcoming guests. The first will be Phil (B) and Vas for Phil (C)'s birthday/Australia Day which we're really excited about! Can't wait to show them around, and Phil (C) has geeked out and produced an itinerary. Yes, that's right.

Yesterday we decided to take advantage of the slightly cooler weather (turns out the forecast was wrong - it was baking) and went for a jog to the local adult playground. Phil has told me I can't call it that or people will get the wrong idea - but basically it's an outdoor excercise zone with pull-up bars etc. Anyway, like the competitive beans that we are, we threw ourselves whole-heartedly into a routine in the midday heat... and like the idiot that I am I pushed it too far, failed to clear a 'pole-vault' (basically just jumping over a beam) and rolled my ankle. Ouch. After an embarassing and painful hobble home, I've now spent the past 20 hours with my swollen sprained ankle packed in ice, elevated, etc. I can sort of walk on it this morning, but am working from home (working hard as you can tell) allowing time to rest. What a plonker! Typically, the wind forecast has picked up this week and is looking amazing. Hopefully I'll at least be back on windsurfing form by the weekend Lancelin Ocean Classic.

Anyway, here's a pic of our local beach (North Cottesloe) - not sure we're technically allowed to windsurf here, but Phil is already making plans...

Merry Christmas!

We're now in Geraldton, having made the 5ish hour journey up the Saturday after my work Christmas party (hosted at a yacht club, in glorious sunshine... nice, just shame I still don't really know enough people well enough to truly relax with all the free bubbly...!), and went straight to Coronation beach a few km north of Gero town centre.

We'd heard about Coro (yes everything has to be abbreviated) but on arriving you can see the appeal straight away - apart from the fact there was the most amount of windsurfers and kite surfers I've seen out on the water in ages (about 20ish at a guess) it is a lovely sandy bay with waves on the outside that are mostly gentle and playful, not kit-breakers. Ideal for me and still fun for Phil.

We've now been here 5 days and have had a couple of really good days, and some pretty light wind days where I've decided to punish myself by learning to tack. I'm terrible at it, and it turns me into a furious monster as it is the most frustrating sport in the world, I'm sure of it! Phil puts up with my tantrums pretty well as I guess he's lucky to have a wife that windsurfs... although maybe he's thinking now that's less of a good thing?! Either way, we've both realised quite how unfit we are windsurf-wise, and Phil also has a long term on-off bicep injury, so we've managed to get on the water for about 3-4hrs max each day but that totally wipes us out!

Christmas Day itself was certainly different from the norm. Woke up to a present in a stocking (a lovely necklace from Phil), then had a big fat bacon and egg breakfast... so far so normal except for the fact the bacon was BBQ'd. Then we went and lay by the campsite pool reading our books and sweltering in the sun, cooling off (i.e. rinsing the sweat off) in the pool, then back to baking ourselves. Phil has decided he doesn't like the sun... this could be an issue in WA! We headed to Coro for the afternoon and the wind was pretty light so it was just me on the water whilst Phil read (in the shade of course) - he's obsessed with Ian Rankin at the moment. He provided coaching tips from the shallows as well, which were mostly well received. I'm still no pro at tacking though and I feel that being able to turn around out back without falling in is a fairly essential skill in light of the whole shark issue... (Mum - only joking). Christmas dinner was, true to every cliche going, shrimp and steak on the BBQ, with olives, gooey cheese (we have no fridge) and sparkling wine (which we used the camping shop's fridge for), followed by plenty of chocolate and some more red wine to top it off. Totally delicious, but turns out a bit too much for my seawater-rinsed, overly sun baked self, and I was sick at 3am due to over consumption. Whoops. All in all though, a lovely day, but obviously missing some key components - family to share it with. Unfortunately we don't have wifi here either so had to stick with just a phone call which was a shame.

It now looks like the forecast for the next few days is a not particularly comfortable combination of no wind, hot, with probable thunderstorms. We're now therefore working out what we can do nearby as we've already paid up for the campsite until 31st December.

Anyway, time to sign off, got some tourist activities to plan!

Life so far

So, been a while! But we have been pretty busy so the weeks have flown by.

In summary, since we got back from lano, we have done the following:

1. Started work - me with peedubs (don't want this blog to pop up on anyone's radar at work!), Phil as a travelling salesman... without car or business card. I've been totally thrown in at the deep end - eg ended up working a 16 hour day yesterday... so trying to decide whether this is a good thing (ie get to prove myself) or not (er... I have no life). People seem lovely though and had a Christmas social already, with another tomorrow afternoon. Phil is finding it a bit slow at the moment but says "it's ok" (I just asked). The act of working hard has certainly helped us to feel like we've settled in though. Just need to work on the whole social life/friends bit...

2. I've bought a racing bike. It's very pretty. It even has clip on pedals, so expect some photos of scraped knees etc.

3. We've found a flat!! It took long enough, and hour after hour every evening trawling websites but we've finally found somewhere in cottesloe so are being royally ripped off I'm sure but we are only one road back from the beach. Excellent. Phil already hates the estate agent though.

4. Moved home again - this time we're in Fremantle courtesy of some very generous friends who are letting us house sit whilst they're in the uk.

5. Drunk lots of wine (work has turned us into alcoholics).

6. Finally put some photos up http://picasaweb.google.com/phil.cutter hopefully works!

7. Bought a new boiler for the Bristol house (poor tenants are apparently filthy and cold).

8. Looked at lots of 4x4s (pictures) and Phil has become very excited about getting a land cruiser now that he has a work car allowance. I suspect we shall be getting a bogan-mobile though (ford falcon) as they're the Aussie equivalent to a big sensible Volvo estate but with a bigger boot!

9. Failed to windsurf after work apart from yesterday when Phil went out but there wasn't much wind. The weather seems to be improving though so we've got our fingers crossed for Geraldton for Christmas (although we've been told we're crazy for wanting to camp in that weather! Ah well, mad dogs and Englishmen and all that...).

10. Enjoy the sunshine. Despite all of the hours of work and general life 'admin' we're still enjoying it here and it is just beautiful, and when the sun is shining it is an incredible place. Even when the sun isn't shining (we've had weird weather patterns for the last couple of weeks) you know it's not far away. Even the commute to work is relatively pleasant as I always get a seat and there are lovely views of the ocean for part of it.

Anyway just one more day of work left before we break for Christmas and although we've only been working 3 weeks it definitely feels like we deserve some time off! Moving countries etc takes it's toll!

Merry Christmas to anyone reading this, and keep in touch xxx