Day off for flying

In the midst of all that shopping, we took a day to relax in the sun (me) and go paragliding (Stef). Here we are at the Mackenzie launch. I just took pics and then drove the car down, did the crossword and took a nap. Stef stayed in the air for about 4 hours. Little Freya didn't seem to mind the bumpy road!

Aloha babymoon

It has become tradition for couples to take a 'babymoon' -- one last romantic holiday for two before the baby arrives. So we went to Oahu for 10 blissful days of sun, surf and snorkling, from 20-30 March. Here's me immitating a beached whale:



We stayed in Kailua, a laid-back town of locals without highrises or hotels or beachside cocktails, where Obama apparently spends his holidays. We stayed in a cute little place called D&D's B&B, just a 5 minute walk from Kailua's beach and park (a steal at $75/night). The water was actually cool (bizarrely, it had hailed in Oahu the week before we got there), and the weather too windy for paragliding. But that didn't stop us from getting around and getting a tan.



We saw a macadamia nut farm (Stef is adept at breaking open nuts, as well as at eating free samples), hiked up the hill in Lanakai, the rugged Olomana '3 peaks' hike/rock climb (I only did the first peak, Stef did the second, and we skipped the third, for a 3-hour humid return trip), and the muddy Maunawili falls. We kayaked out from Kailua to Mokolua Island on a wavy day (it was very entertaining watching novices try to land without tipping into the surf), snorkled at Hanauma Bay (which is much less impressive than it used to be, back when they let tourists feed the fish! Now it's far less colourful and popluated by reef fish) and off Electric beach on the west coast (the best spot for snorkling by far -- fish are attracted to the warm water outflow pipe, which has become an artificial reef), swam with dolphins from Ko Olina resort (expensive at $120 each but worth it), and generally mooched about the beach, shops, and highways of Oahu. A highlight for Stef was Bookends, a new and used book shop in the heart of Kailua (every restaurant seemed to be locatable in terms of 'steps from Bookends'), where he found a book he'd been looking for for 10 years!

Now it's back to the grindstone... more literally for stef than for me.

Pregnancy highlights from the trip:
Freya is kicking like a boxer now, the little fighter! Sleeping became a real pain, with hip ache waking me every few hours and getting me up at the crack of dawn. But by the end of the holiday that had much improved. Long flights with a big belly are not comfy -- those seats are a pain in the back, literally. Otherwise, Freya caused no problems and enjoyed her time in the sun.

Whale of a time

We have just come back from the most ridiculously good holiday -- 10 days kayaking in the Johnstone Strait and Broughton Archipeligo. I can highly, highly recommend it.

We were sung to sleep one night by humpback whales, foraged a dinner of kelp and fish and sea asparagus, nearly had lunch on an island with a bear on it, nearly camped on an island with a bear on it, paddled past an island with an unseen but very loud cougar on it, frolicked with seals and otters and dolphins and dall's porpoises and minke whales, and saw so many eagles we got bored of pointing them out. We had cloud in the mornings to keep us cool, and sun in the afternoons to dry out our kit. One day of rain to make the rest of it seem that much better. And a frightening, awe-enspiring encounter with killer whales -- twice. I know you're suposed to stay 100 metres away, but there's little you can do when a whale decides to visit you. At 5km/hr I really cannot out-run a whale. At one point a whale swam under the back of our boats, turning sideways to check us out underwater... seriously. Another time a juvenile actually came inside a kelp bed (where it is very, very shallow) to say hello. We are told the first batch at least were resident whales (A4 pod, apparently), and they only eat fish, so that's reassuring.


Random note: the grand old matriarch of the A1 pod, one of the first whales named in the area, was called... Nicola.

Gimme a break

We have a holiday booked in Mexico for 23 Jan till the 5th of Feb, and we have decided to put off any more offer-making until after a few margaritas. We will come back refreshed, and I won’t have to spend my beach holiday drawing house plans, which is an unexpected plus.