We went to Alcatraz yesterday which was really eerie. There was an ex inmate there who has written a book about his stay so we bought a copy and got him to sign it. Darren liked the rule that they were allowed 'food, clothing, medical attention and shelter but everything else was a privelige'. We've been on the cable cars but walked back from the fishermans wharf yesterday as they were full of bloody tourists, the hills are really steep and we were knackered w...

We made it into USA with no problems only an hour delay from Rarotonga. We had only been in Hollywood for 20 minutes and we had seen a lady with a tattoo beard, a women with a dummy in a wheelchair and an LAPD arrest. Hostel was good and we are heading for San Franisco today as San Diego is a no no because of the huge fires sweeping through California.

Well we are on our last day here and we have no idea where the time has gone. We have not done a lot of anything but lots of nothing. The weather has been good, the water good for snorkeling, kayaking, swimming and the beach lovely. Our place is just off the beach on the hillside and we have been getting free fruit (bananas, mangos and paw paw) and Darren has been trying the local coconuts. We have found a few happy hours that have kept us very happy for a fe...

Well we are on wind down now as only a week left in New Zealand now. The time has just flown by and it seems hard to believe that we have been away for over 7 weeks already. We have seen some lovely sites and done some crazy things but have enjoyed all of it. Darren has walked more than he wanted to - I keep telling him its only an hour/2 hours walk and they turn into 4 hour walks (convinced him to walk 15km today along the Karangahake gorge). I have also egg...

Not much we can do here as our insurance says 'no' 'no' and 'no' to all of the activities that we are looking at. We finally found a whitewater rafting excursion that was only a grade 3 so we could do this. Darren had to sit in the front and just continually got soaked much to my amusment. It was good and we ached after so went to the free thermal pool for a soak. We are going to look at scotland when we get home as you can do grade 5 rafting there and we lik...