After spending Christmas Day hauling a few trailer loads of building rubbish away from the new house (timing is everything), we idled up to Kangaroo Valley to spend a couple of days with Emma’s extended family. The house is on one of the last properties in upper reaches of the valley, so is surrounded by soaring escarpments and fronted by a fantastic permanent river with deep waterholes. Dane and I spent most of the time building a dam, interspersed by regular feasts prepared by Bec and some energetic dinner table discussions.

The Dam Builders

Emma taking the sprog for a dip.

The Feast

Terry entertains the masses

Spiderman pays a visit

… shortly followed by Skeletor

Happy boys

The Family

I had a one of those nice Christmas surprises this morning when I walked over the dunes with a 5′10″ fish and comp leggie to find a solid pulse of 6ft south swell pushing through - always fun to try and surf the wrong equipment in decent sized waves. Dane and I hung out and watched a few decent sets come through the bombie for the afternoon session…

It’s all downhill back into winter after the longest day of the year today. What had been predicted to be a washout day turned into a perfect summer afternoon, with a nice NE swell trimmed by a westerly wind. Funny how these afternoons always seem to coincide with Emma working, so I missed getting a chance to surf, but Dane and I hung out watching the sunset over some flawless left-hand barrels regardless.

The Endless Left

“Those barrels look sick Dad!”

Dane’s idea of the perfect portrait

Superspidermandane finally crashes.

Apart from a couple of hot weeks in October, we’ve had persistent rain through November & December care of La Niña. While it’s been a nice relief from the drought and summer bushfire danger, it’s almost relentlessly rained week, after week, after week. These pics of a storm rolling across the Milton farmlands has become a common sight…

One of our final tasks clearing up after the house construction was to get rid of the old wooden cladding I couldn’t be bothered salvaging, so what more excuse did the boys need to have a massive bonfire while Emma was at work one night?