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Happy New Year 2015 and What Happened to 2014?

The start of 2014 found us in New Zealand where we had been traveling since November 7, 2013. We where there until the 3rd of February when we went to Australia to travel around until the 9th of May when we returned to California and home in Canby.

We spent the summer and fall working on the property and construction projects on the house, the biggest being the creation of the loft guard rail using wood we milled from a tree on our property and the installation of a new wood cook stove.

It has been a great year filled with amazing adventures and people in three countries! Check out some of the other galleries and post in this blog for our travel logs and I will add more pictures this winter to fill in the Australian trip.

Happiest of New Years to you and may 2015 bring you all the best in all your adventures!

Cheers, Debbie and Roger

New Years Day 2014 and we were on the south end of the South Island of New Zealand headed to the small town of Bluff. Not a bad way to start the year!

New Years Day and our home away from home in New Zealand a van we named The Two Lambs Inn. Please see the other entries in the blog about this great van and our adventures in it.

Here we are having fun in Australia in early March. We were in Australia until the 9th of May when we flew home. More Australia pictures will be posted to the blog soon.

Our home away from home in Australia. We named this one Kido (short for Ekidna which is a cool Australian animal). It was very comfortable and we traveled many enjoyable miles in it. — Our home away from home in Australia. We named this one Kiddo (short for Echidna which is a cool Australian animal). It was very comfortable and we traveled many enjoyable miles in it.

Roger flys at Stanwell Park about a week before we left Australia. — Roger flies at Stanwell Park about a week before we left Australia.

Back home to Canby in May 2014. The big pond was still not full but gave us an enjoyable place to hang out.

Hang gliding of course took place over the summer. Roger and Phil setting up on launch at the new flying site, the south side of Schaffer mountain near our house in Canby. Roger flew and landed in the new bailout LZ so the site is baptized!

There were a lot of wildfires this summer. This smoke plume is from the Day wildfire which was about 30 miles from us. It was one of three big wildfires burning at the same time in August. It made for a worrying summer.

The forest fires caused a lot of smoke and very eerie sunsets. The smoke plume from the Day fire can be seen to the left just above the mountains.

We met Rich and Rachel in New Zealand at a flying meet and they came over in August for visit. Here Roger and Rich set up on Sugar Hill. Unfortunately for Rich the smoke from the fires moved in and he never got to launch. It was great to have them visit!

We ordered a new wood cook stove and the stove was delivered to the bottom of our road so the trusty backhoe was used to bring it up to the house. It weighed 950 lbs all crated so it wasn't easy. Thanks to Eric Beckman for his help, he is riding shotgun in this picture! — We ordered a new wood cook stove and the stove was delivered to the bottom of our road so the trusty backhoe was used to bring it up to the house. It weighed 950 lbs all crated so it wasn’t easy. Thanks to Eric Beckman for his help, he is riding shotgun in this picture!

We needed a new metal heat shield for behind the new cook stove so as usual we invented one. Here is a close up of the heat shield we made from an old VW van floor (welded into a metal frame and painted black) and some copper sheeting.

The next project was a guard rail for the loft. This is the dead Jeffery Pine that we cut down and milled into lumber for our building projects. It is about 60 feet tall. We also milled some downed junipers that we had.

A friend Garret came and helped us with cutting down the dead Jeffery Pine so it could be milled into lumber. He has done a lot of tree cutting and he did a great job.

This is Howard who came to our place with his portable band saw mill. He did a great job and we had a wonderful time milling the wood. — This is Howard who came to our place with his portable band saw mill. He did an awesome job and we had a wonderful time milling the wood.

A full view of the mill. We made a bunch of boards and a lot of saw dust!

This is all the wood we milled and stacked. There are a lot of projects in those stacks of pine and juniper!

For those asking about the process, here is the transition of the milled wood from ruff cut to planned, edges routered, sanded and then notched.

Here is the lumber for the guard rails all planed, notched, sanded and varnished.

This is the guard rail next to the stairs taken from the loft. — This is the new guard rail next to the stairs taken from the loft.

The main guard rail shown from the loft. I used the pine for everything but the top cap which is juniper. — The new main guard rail shown from the loft. I used the pine for everything but the top cap which is juniper.

Here is a detail of part of the juniper rail cap. The juniper has lots of interesting designs going on in the grain.

What the shop and loft looked like before we started working on new stove and guardrail.

What the shop looks like now with the new wood stove and loft guard rail. A few more bits of trim, glass above the doors and some artistic touches and we will be done with this part.

It wasn't all construction this summer at fall. Roger and I demonstrated hang gliding at the Sportsmans Expo in Alturas. There was quite a lot of interest and people enjoyed the simulator. — It wasn’t all construction this summer at fall. Roger and I demonstrated hang gliding at the Sportsmans Expo in Alturas. There was quite a lot of interest and people enjoyed the simulator.

Mike, Karin, Aidan and Mello came up from the Bay Area for a visit and we had some great adventures!

The aspen leaves this fall were very beautiful!

Our friend Chewy from Canada took this picture of us in Canby while he was visiting in January 2015. A Happy New Year to you all.

Great Places Near Takaka SI NZ

Lovely house that Matt and Hellena have that they kindly let us camp outside for a couple of days near Takaka.

Looking out from the launch atop Mt Takaka

View from launch that Matt is developing. Unfortunately the winds were not strong enough to fly.

Matt’s great dog Rajah watching Matt watch the wind.

Rajah relaxing while we waited for the wind.

View from the top of the ridge in Cobb Valley part of the Abel Tasman

Another view from our hike on the ridge in Cobb Valley.

The ever changing foliage on the hike on the ridge in Cobb Valley.

So many great rocks! We of course could not bring them with us :(

This is the sign at the entrance to Pupu Springs written in Mori.

This is looking down at one spot where the water wells up at a rate of about 14,000 liters per second!

Looking closer into the springs. It is unbelievably clear and you really want to go for a swim in it.

This is the entrance to the path to the springs which are of course a sacred place to the Mori. We got to get some water and it did taste very, very nice!

Some info on how the springs are formed.

More info on the springs, a truly amazing place.

Update From Down Under South Coast OZ

March 12, 2014Galleriesadmin

I have finally taken the time to try and finish figuring out how to get this blog publishing program to work on an iPad. I think I may be getting it but we will see. I had put together picture galleries but could not get the comment feature to work in the iPad application mode and the web based method is of course for a “computer” which I have come to learn the hard way that an iPad is not. Anyway that is one of the excuses for taking so long updating the blog. I will publish the gallery called something like Places Near Takaka SI NZ (SI stands for South Island) along with this update to see if I have truly worked out this software.

Meanwhile the Australian update is that we are down on the south coast of Victoria near Melbourne. Roger has been honing his coastal flying skills at some very beautiful cliffs above some lovely coves with some very nice local pilots.

Here he is flying the famous surfing beach Bell’s Beach. He flew about 10 km down the coast to land at the estuary in Anglesea.

We have also spent some time going on hikes and seeing some of the Australian wildlife. We have actually been seeing Koala bears up in the trees, out in the wild, while hiking. We have seen many kangaroos while driving or at campgrounds and also emus out in the outback. Here are a few critter pictures from our hikes or at the nature park.

This is a Kookaburra which is a good sized bird with a great call, laugh and a pretty catchy song about it.

We saw this fellow when we were out hiking above Adelaide.

This guy was a bit sleepy.

A Roo for you!

These next few pictures were from a nature park we walked through near Adelaide.

This is an Echidna which is about the size of a small cat. They are very interesting little critters that eat ants and have quills like a porcupine. We have actually seen one in the wild as well.