Bom dia gringos

Well we have been in Portugal for a couple of weeks now and been lovin the sun, sand, surf, food, beer etc.....

We arrived in the capital of Lisbon and went straight to a small coastal town of Peniche to meet my good friends Scott and Sam, the surf was flat so the days were passed in the appropriate way of sampling the local cerveja´s (beers).

Sam and Scott left on the friday so we went to Lisbon to have a look around the tourist part of the city, which featured a beautiful castel Castelo Sao Jorge on the highest point, and some beautiful buildings and churches. The nightlife was excellent as was the food.

Portugal is pretty small so everthing is quite close to drive, and there are so many surf breaks along the coast. We hired ourselves a car which is easily the smallest car both of us has driven, and instanlty felt the freedom of being behind the wheel again and the chaos of driving on the right hand side with the notoriously agressive Portugese drivers.

A highlight of the drive was stopping in Sintra, a beautiful wooded hillside town with a moorish castle and royal palace on top of the peaks. The palace has a vibrant pink and yellow exterrior and was a romantic escape spot for the Portugese royals, filled with ocean style carvings on also had a huge garden filled with imported trees and ferns, and mini castles in the lakes just for the ducks and swans. The royals knew how to live here!

We are in Peniche at the moment having spent a few days with Johanna and her friend Almut as they came up to learn to surf. Peniche is a small fishing peninsula with lots of waves on both coasts so it is good in lots of wind directions. We have had some good surfs at a right hand point break called Consolacoa, old people flock here to lay on the rocks as they contain a mineral which is good for reumatism. So it is like surfing in the middle of a retirement village.

Tomorrow Johanna,Reg and I are going to make our way north towards the wine region of Porto, so the photos may be a bit blurry for this part of the trip.

We have had a great time so far here, and only a week left here. Hopefully the week will contain lots more surfing in good waves, and some more sight seeing.

Thanks for your comments, it is nice to hear from you all.

- Paul and Reg

London Calling...

Hi everyone, after an awesome couple of days in Amsterdam we have arrived safe and sound in London.

We were very kindly offered accomodation in a houseboat by Phil and Yvonnes friend's Ria and Gerda, and we loved it. Thank you all.

Phil picked us up from the airport at a blurry eyed 5:30am and after circling the location a few times we found our way to the houseboat. My friend Silke and her boyfriend Stefan drove from Germany to join us in the afternoon and later that day we cruised up the Amstel on Ria's dinghy.

It was a great way to see the city, Captain Reg safely avoiding the tour boats and larger vessels when we braved the harbour with our 6horse power outboard gunning the wakes.

We had an interesting night out on Saturday in the heart of old town, and managed to stumble onto the plane to Heathrow the next day.

Now in London we are staying at the flat I will be living in this year. It is mostly a crew I grew up with in Hawkes Bay Sam Edwards + his girlfriend Becks, Scott McKensie, Jason Miritana, and 2 English girls, Erika + Charlie. The flat is really nice, modern and easy to get to the local tube station Acton town. Here is my address for those that don't have it:
75 Brouncker Road, W38AF, Acton London.

Reg and I did a tour around London yesterday on a double decker bus and a boat up the Thames. The tour was excellent, such amazing architecture and we learnt alot of history about the city and the buildings.


Even having lived here Reg was impressed again with the detail in the old buildings, seeing the shcrapnel holes in an old church from the German bombers was very cool. I am looking forward to exploring the city in more detail while I live here. We are going to see Reg's brother Angus' band play in town tonight.

We fly to Portugal early tomorrow morning to meet up with Sam Edwards and Scott McKensie on the coast in a small fishing village called Peniche. So hopefully lots of good waves for us on the horizon.

will post again soon,

- the boys