we woke to glorious weather today so headed to our favourite boogie boarding beach – tawharanui. it’s about an hour’s drive away, the last 10 minutes is down an unmade windy road. windy as well as windy. just so you know
jane was first to go in with the girls. all three are in the wave above, kezia is attempting to go through it, esther is already on it, and jane’s about to launch (esther likes to jump early so she can slide down in the crashing wave)
however, jane’s method gives here a nice initial boost, as can be seen from her hair and facial expression. Kezia’s through the wave approach had its drawbacks, but esther maintained her poise.
a seconds later esther and kezia reached the wave end
i had a go with the girls after lunch then jane had another go.
the person adult who remained got to sit up here and watch the world go by
a nice place to sit, shaded by trees and with the paper to read and people to watch
meanwhile back in the water proper surfers were able to do their stuff close to shore as the waves were so big
it was quite amazing to see the size and power of the waves
but also not to have to worry about being swept out to sea as there’s no rips in this beach
sadly there weren’t any dolphins this time
but the tide was out so we could walk round to a spit of rock which had really deep and warm rock pools that people were lying in.
there’s three parts to the beach and all three have great surf. the ones round the other side to us looked much more professional
here’s kezia acting as my guide to the rock pools
here’s the beach
and here’s me having been squirted with sun cream
finally, here are two of the surfing chicks i got to hang out with today
after all that hotness, we had ice creams from the best ice cream shop on the planet (if you visit us we’ll take you there – promise) and then went to local ski centre (which has real snow) to find out about kezia’s birthday present, which looks like being a 2 hours ski lesson for all the family. her choice !
it’s hot and sticky here but not unbearably so. in fact it was a little cool in the shade as it was so windy.
see ya
dave