Beaches, Banga, Brisbane

Greetings from the Gold Coast! The beaches here are incredible and the sand is so soft. The other night I was able to upload some photos from my other camera so I figured I'd share a few of those here as well.

Cedric likes to continually remind me to stay on the left side of the road. I put the sticker up for when he's driving.

Skipper's Canyon where I went jetboating! It was a 2 hour drive into the canyon on really narrow roads but the mountains around were stunning. (this was back in Queenstown)

Franz Josef Glacier that I did the half day glacier hike on!

One of the many random waterfalls that I drove down long gravel roads for and went hiking to go find!

The dune we went sandboarding down! It's not a great picture and is blurry but based on the size of people going up it gives you a bit of an idea of how big it is! (and the bottom part is missing too!) So fun! I need to find some local sanddunes...

Cedric at the beach, proving that even though he has no legs, that will not stop him from having fun.

Incredible NZ beaches!

Bread Capital.. in honour of my post about random places that dub themselves capitals.

The Hot Pools at Lake Taupo! So nice!

Geothermal Park of Orakei Korako

Huka Falls

Fly Fishing! I wear orange to attract the fish.. actually normally you wouldn't wear bright colours but because the water was so high and churned up, they wouldn't be able to see it...

One of the fish I caught!

Lake Taupo

GIANT kiwi!

One of my fave places I stayed! Cool atmosphere and great wall art! (okay I have a beef about hotels/motels and other places always putting horrible art on their walls, so I appreciate it when it's nice!)

I love the ferns! Evidence of that is how many pictures I have of them...

Cathedral Cove

Stingray Bay from a distance

Hot Water Beach

Digging my hot water pool at Hot Water Beach

Relaxing and trying to take a picture of myself in the hot pools! So lovely!

And such a beautiful view!

Me and baby E where I was staying. I miss her-she is so so so precious!! And full of smiles and giggles! I absolutely loved staying with Dave and Karin and was so incredibly blessed to spend time with them and be encouraged. So refreshing!

And they showed me a true Australian experience with a tour of their town, and some great eats.. Mmmm... we had kangaroo steaks, beef pies, deep fried pineapple and bananas, iced chocolate and many other tasty treats! :) Now I will eat vegetables for 2 days. :)

And we watched a rugby game last night so I feel much more educated on the game of Rugby. I even know a player's name. pretty much an expert what can I say.

Mmm.. I love the grease stains on the pie bag...

As I mentioned before, today I arrived on the Gold Coast and enjoyed walking around the beach, people watching and surfer watching! And I did a little bit of shopping. Well, that means I bought a really cheap suitcase that I can fill with Tim Tam's for friends back home. haha. If Air Canada allows me to have two bags, each weighing fifty pounds, it makes sense that I would take them up on their offer...

Tomorrow i'm taking up surfing! I decided (in a moment of sheer motivation and inspiration) that I would take up a minimum of one new sport/outdoor activity every year. This year's activity will be surfing! So I'm having a surfing lesson tomorrow and after the lesson, I will rent a board and keep refining my skills (which I'm sure will come incredibly naturally).

After surfing I'm going to go see some humpback whales (hopefully) and then going to church in the evening! The church name is 'Surf City Church'so it should be fun! Maybe it's a surfers'church? Can't wait!

And that's all for now, stay tuned! Oh, and Banga is in the title because for dinner I'm stir-frying vegetables and having kanga banga sausages! Which is pretty much kangaroo sausages.. Mmm.. I have no idea what the banga means actually. But I am loving kangaroo and am excited to eat more of it at home (there's an exotic meats place i'm going to start frequenting). They jump around all the time so they're all muscle. And I wrote Brisbane in my title because I drove by it, and it started with a b, and I needed one more word. Just thought I'd explain myself a little bit!