NaDan

There is a magic word going round the camp at the moment and it is not Shazam.  It came from people asking Nathanial his name and then calling him Daniel so we started calling him Dan but then realised we need to say his sound which is Na so now we call him NaDan, and if we are angry it is NaDam and when he is a father it maybe NaDad.  NaDan is our goodluck charm so now this is our magic word.
Today is pouring with rain so what an opportunity to blog up.  We have already done a big walk on the beach, got wet, went for a swim and got more wet then had a shower and got even wetter.  On our walk we discussed whether you would rather be a hero or sidekick, then we had a bacon and eggs brunch and played our 1 millionth game of monopoly deal which Wooz won with a deal breaker again.
Yesterday was our last day with E and Joan before they head further north so E and Gaz played golf at Ballina while the boys went shopping with their $50 they got from Grandma and Pa.  They bought some new clothes and then we had a nice butterfly lamb on the barbee back at the caravan park in Skenners Head where E and Joan still were.  E only had 15 points at golf, we smashed him the day before on our big walk, and won a schooner for coming last.  E and Joan came up to Byron the day before and we did the lighthouse walk in the morning our first and only full sunny day.  Thanks so much for a wonderful first 6 weeks of our trip Grandma and Pa we had lots of laughs and your help was really appreciated.  Kirst doesn't know what she will do now!

As you can see the boys weren't that happy about it.  But they fired up in the arvo when we drove up to Minyin falls and did the 6.5km walk.  We checked out the falls from above and sussed out whether
the massive drop was makeable or not.

Then decided we would take the long way down and walk.  It would make it easier to get back if we took one of the cars down to the other carpark, the only problem was I drove out to fast and E and Wooz went the wrong way.  We waited 25 mins for them to return and tried again finally getting started at around 3.30pm which meant we needed to make haste or we would be walking in the forest in the dark.

Unfortunately we were about 1km into it and there was a bit of confusion with directions which set us further back and sure enough we walked the last couple of km's in the dark.  We did set a cracking pace which made it pretty tough for E and Joan, and only Gaz, Arch and Wooz made it to the base of the falls which was amazing.

We ran about a km back to the others to catch up which was a great effort from the Wooz whose thongs fell apart from the pressure.  Excellent effort from NaDan as well walking most of the way and not complaining.  This is how dark it was before we got to the falls.

We drove through Mullimbimby on the way home and E suggested stopping for a pub meal and a couple of schooners which was very nice and NaDan had a go at winning the meat platter in the raffle.  What a day.
Anyways Arch is still clocking up lots of surf time at The Pass

and this is generally what it looks like- beautiful straight lines and fun little waves.

Wooz was out there carving up today as well and Kirst on the boogster.  It was also time for me to invest in a new board having had an amazing 7 years of sevice from the waterskate, which survived Dad running it over and many hard knocks especially at the Schank.  I have truly loved that board and now Kirst has claimed it in her bid to learn to surf, in other words it can retire peacefully.  Now it is time for the dominator markII to take it's place in history and stand united with The Child and the first of the dominators.

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NaDan took some photos of a typical morning having breakfast, which involves Kirst and I trying to eat while the boys wrestle and yell around us,

 and as you can see Kirst is not that happy about it!
We also had a bike ride in the rain today down to Suffolk Park and then cooked a roast chicken in the annex because it was raining and the smoke from the hot plate nearly choked us all (good one Gaz).  We live on through rain and smoke, and whatever other challenges we have though because of the magic NaDan.