Whilst I'm not working (I quit last week), I thought I'd pop along to my old favourites the Science Museum and the Natural History Museum.
Imagine my surprise when I found out that the Science museum had a computer games display on, so I just had to check it out. It was full of old consoles and arcade machines, all free to play, and the memories came back quick and fast.
After destroying the Death Star, eating some spots and defeating the invaders (again), I thought I should really get back to the rest of the museum. Sadly the rest of the Science museum wasn't quite as interesting and I only managed to spend 15 seconds in the "History of Mathematics" before getting bored.

I then moved on to the Natural History museum which was more like it! Dinosaurs, woo hoo!

  Pacman!

  Animatronic T-Rex

  A real life (dead) Kakapo.

Well we had Jackie and George over for a couple of weeks for a visit, it was great to see them even if I was temporarily thrown out of my bedroom to accomodate them!

George wore his All Blacks hat and just started crawling before he left! Yay!
Kiteboarding won't be far behind I'm sure.

Well another week in paradise. The weather's not been too bad and I've been catching up with friends and family.
My sister is over from Vancouver so I've been hanging around with her and George, my nephew, although I've still managed to sneak away for a quick look at a local beach and to have another session at the cable park.

  Hayling Island


  Hayling Island

Well I've been in the UK for 5 days now and it's all going swimmingly. The weather isn't quite as bad as I thought it would be and my job hunting is going well. I've had 2 telephone interviews so far and have a full interview on Monday with a company that sounds good.

Today I thought I'd try and meet some local kiters so I went to the local cable park to indulge in some wakeboarding action. I met up with Ian Storer at the park and we had a bit of a laugh and a pint afterwards.

Ian goes for a swim

  Me coming around the corner

  One of the local kids shows us up

  Local kiter Chris

  Me trying to slow down a little

Chris was kind enough to lend me a 15m Griffin kite for my time in Sydney and, wow, I love this kite.

Thursday was a light wind day yet I was still able to tack around to Butterbox for some great wave riding. Better yet, I saw 2 whales on the way around! The first time I'd seen whales whilst kiting. Awesome!

Then Sunday came around and it was blasting 30 knots plus! Wow. The 15m Griffin still handled it though and I had an awesome time!

 

 Rob walks onto the beach

 

 Kim and Holly wrapped up

 

 I take on a wave

 

  Mark goes big

 

  As does Chris

 

  I ride a wave

 

  Mark slashes

I spent 5 days in Sydney catching up with Kim and all my mates.

Friday was a drunken day starting at lunch time with a "sizzler", which was my favourite lunch spot in Sydney. Then onto the Slip Inn for a few jars before hitting the Retro for another drunken night with plenty of dancing. Nice.

No photos this time, thank god!

Well, a bunch of us celebrated my leaving with a "few" drinks at Bar de Baz on Ponsonby Road in Auckland. We had a few warm up drinks first in Ellerslie after work, and then met up to party later on.

Much drinking, much dancing and a little chundering. Nice

Thanks to everyone who came out and made it a great night!

 

There are pictures floating around, but luckily I don't have any just yet.

 

Only 1 week left in New Zealand! It's all come a bit quick really and I've still got a few things to sort out!

On Sunday I finally received an offer on the car, I'm not sure whether to accept it or not as it's a little bit low but I guess I don't have much of a choice really!

Saturday was a much more pleasant day, I drove down to Raglan, a surfing village 2 hours south of Auckland, (think Bryon Bay as it's supposed to be) and had an awesome time kiting there in some of the most butter like smooth water New Zealand has to offer!
Awesome. And I even managed to get someone to take a photo of me! Even better!

  Me doing a front roll

  Ian goes for a nosebone

In an attempt to maximise the time I have left in NZ, I spent the whole weekend at Muriwai beach! Yay for me!
Saturday was a stormer, with 20 knots all day. Sunday was lighter but still awesome fun.

Perrin was using his buggy to rip up the beach and frankly he scares me with the speeds he reaches. He claimed 60km/h on Sunday according to his GPS! Wow.

I took my camera this time, and took a few more shots. Sadly these didn't come out all that well, but still good enough to give an impression!

Other beach users

Perrin gets some air on his buggy!

James goes "styling"

Mike gets some air

The weekend just gone was a bit of a mixed bag. I spent Saturday standing at the beach with a bunch of fellow kitesurfers waiting for the rain to stop and the wind to pick up. 5 hours spent huddling around the mens toilet block (it's the only building nearby) staring into space whilst the weather continually looked like it was about to change for the better.
By 2 o'clock, whilst we were still laughing and having a good time, we made the call that it wasn't going to happen and went home.
Sunday turned out to be one of the better days of the year. Mostly sunny and the wind built from 12 knots to 25 knots by 2 o'clock. I had some friends from work, Helene and Sam, come along for a lesson and they couldn't have picked a better day. By the end of Sunday they were both working the kite and having a great time. Meanwhile I splashed around with my usual lack of style and generally caused havoc in the water.
No photos sadly as we were all too busy having a good time to even think of bringing out a camera.

Last night Paul and I went for an hour session at snowplanet. I finally landed a big 180 and Paul worked on some rails.

Me hitting a ramp


  Paul works on a rail