Darren's Bali Birthday!!

Darren's birthday began with a surprise at breakfast.  All of the restaurant staff brought out a cake with a lighted candle on it, gatherered round Darren and sang Happy Birthday! 

Next was Darren's birthday present from me......a surf lesson!  We had a private two hour lesson for the two of us with Felix, a local instructor at the Up2U Surf Club.  I was kind of expecting a lot of theory first, learning board basics and ocean safety, but it was pretty much straight out into the waves....which were huge (over 2m high)!

Before getting up on the boards, we had to establish our surf style!  Darren was regular (left foot forward), but of course I had to be different with a 'goofy foot' surfing stance (right foot forward).

I think the photos show how much we loved it.....despite a few wipe outs.....

The next morning I felt like I'd been run over!!!  I can't believe how tough surfing is on your arms and ribs!  But Darren had booked himself in for another lesson, so at high tide he was off again.....

Felix shares some tips!

While Darren was surfing, I got a manicure!!!

In the evening we got a cab to Seminyak for a meal at a beautiful candlelit restaurant on the beachfront - La Lucciola....

And the following night we went to another great beachfront restaurant in Seminyak - Ku De Ta....

Too soon it was time to pack up our cottage and say goodbye to bonkers Bali!!!

Bali in reality is not the paradise Bali that I had in my mind before we went. There are definitely two sides to Bali - the busy, dirty streets versus the luxury hotel and posh restaurants!  After our trip to Kuta on our first full day I was a little worried about what lay ahead, but it was such a fun holiday that we would definitely go back, but maybe stay in Seminyak!

Hello Moto!

It's hard to believe that we've been in Australia long enough to go to the MOTO GP at Phillip Island three times!!!  But this weekend was the third time that Mark has stayed over on the Saturday night so that we were up bright and early on the Sunday morning to catch the coach from Federation Square at 6.30am!

The weather forecast this year didn't look as bad as last year, so Darren decided to come as well!  Turns out that it wasn't as good as last year - very, very windy and a few heavy downpours!!!  But we managed to find cover during the rain, and I managed to cover up pretty much all of me to escape the wind, (still managed to get a wind/sun burnt nose!!!), and it was a really fun day.

Very windy!!!

Aussie Casey Stoner celebrated his 26th birthday in world beating style, leading from start to finish to win the IVECO Australian MotoGP for the fifth year in a row and claim his second world championship crown.

The day wasn't without drama though with Stoner's main rival for the championship, Spaniard Jorge Lorenzo, forced to withdraw from the race after severing the top of a finger on his left hand in a fall during the morning warm-up session.  The heavy downpours, that seemed to come from nowhere, created tricky conditions resulting in several crashes - a couple right in front of us!

It's quite a long (but fun), tiring day because of the early start......nothing a holiday wouldn't fix........

Velociraptor

We've seen them in the UK and Australia, but when we heard that they were going to be doing only one gig in Australia this year to promote their new album, Velociraptor, we just had to get tickets!  It was an exclusive gig at a venue in the Docklands that only holds 1400 people, so we had a brilliant view and were able to get right up the front.

Darren must have been shattered because he came straight from the airport after working in Sydney, but it was a great night.....and here are some of the photos.....

Being grown ups!

Mark and Emma's 10th wedding anniversary and we're called in for babysitting duties - for 24 hours!!!!  Yes, we had to behave like grown ups and look after little people overnight!  We stayed at Mark and Emma's, and Mabel and Kieran were good as gold - have a look at the photos and see who you think had the most fun!!!