February 8th

---

Narabeen, Australia - February 8th - 3:45pm
Well I think today was one of the funniest days I’ve had in Australia if not THE funniest. Sorry most fun for you grammatically correct people. I got up pretty early for some reason. I was up at 7:30, rolled around for a bit till 8:30 then read my book. I got up, made a coffee and sat down to watch the news. I’m not sure if you are getting the news but we are in serious bush fire season. There are 50 fires burning at the moment in the state of New South Wales. There are 11 in Victoria, with 8 burning out of control. They are just outside of Melbourne, they say that one town Kinglake (I think) is about 98% burned. The death toll was 25 when I woke up and jumped to 36 before lunch time. It’s very sad. Queensland is under water from the cyclones in the Great Barrier Reef and on the other side of the island they have bush fires. It’s a weird country.

David said that he was going to go out body boarding later today and invited me to come along. I informed him that I’ve never done it before but I’d be willing to give it a shot. He made BLT’s for breakfast which were great. I sat down and read my book for a little while, as I can’t put it down anymore. Pam you got me hooked. I went down stairs to get a glass of water and I saw David cutting the grass with pruning shears. It was quiet funny but the way their backyard is set up, you can’t access it except through the house and it’s too small to keep a lawn mower in so you’d have to haul the lawn mower through the house. It’s really stupid so they are eventually going to extend the deck to the garden so that they don’t have to worry about the grass but I guess the builders have to plant a certain amount of grass because they live in hippie area.

David and I then set out for the beach. It was a long walk across the street to get the beach. We were expecting the water to be warm but were soon mistaken. It was bare able but still chilly willy. I got a few good ones in but I think I got my salt intake for a year. I gulped more water and got dunked under more times but it was fun. It’s all the learn process. It was rewarding when you caught a good wave but there were only a few for me! It was much more work than I would have expected as well. So I went in early and watched David ride the surf for a little while before he got tired as well. It was very fun though, I’ll have to go do it again soon.

Next time I go, I might bring Lee’s waterproof camera and get some hilarious videos of me falling off the board! Haha We’ll have to see though.

10:00pm
Well today was a sad day. The fires in Victoria have now taken 86 lives. It just seems everytime you turn your back there are more people to report about. It’s a very sad situation here. I think everyone is feeling the rath of this. One end theres floods and the other is fires. The really sad thing is that these fires might have been started intentionally from pyromaniacs. It’s just so horrible.

David and I were watching Cricket for a bit and I picked him brain on all the questions I could think of. I think I might understand it but there are just so many rules and things. It’s a very skilful game, very interesting. Australia finally won a game so the spirits are up.

But I’m off to bed as I only have 2 chapters left in my book.

---