Greetings from Hawaii!

Ok, so the picture at the top isn't actually anywhere near where i am, nor am i in American Samoa but i couldn't work out how to change it and just got annoyed.

so I'm in my second destination in Hawaii. Last Sunday I flew from Sydney to Honolulu and then another flight onto Maui. My hotel was ok, a bit 'weathered' and the staff weren't that friendly, but it did the job, the ocean was on my doorstep and the weather was lovely, even though it is winter here, it's still above 25degrees most days. The problem I've had here though is getting around. It seems that the majority of people who come here are couples, who hire cars to get around. I didn't want to hire a car, I've never driven on the wrong side of the road before and didn't fancy navigating and driving and making sure i stayed on the right side of the road at the same time. Public transport on Maui was sketchy, one an hour and every time i asked i'd just missed it. The nearest shop was over a mile away which was time consuming, but that said, there was a very nice beach and i spent a lot of my time there. The bus where I am now is more regular, yesterday i went to a shopping centre and waited for the bus home. The driver was having a break, chatting to a friend, when the people waiting got bored they had to shout to him to hurry up- life is so laid back here, more so than in australia, hurry is just not in their vocabulary, which is lovely, but i felt sorry for the poor girl who passed out at the customs line last week, it took them 20 minutes to move her and people were having to step over here to get to the front of the queue.

Hawaii is very mountainous, and on some of the islands there are active volcanoes still but i think that's on Big Island. Hawaii is the state and each island is a county, so at the moment i'm on Kaua'i in a town called Lihue. The mountains are beautiful, it's very lush and green- a dark, vivid emerald kind of green, with the ocean right there too. I got here on Thursday after a slightly hair-raising flight in high winds, we had a severe wind warning thursday night, the wind speed got up to 60mph.

It was a bit weird to be travelling alone again, after being surrounded by Chey and her crazy family and friends for nearly 4 weeks. This time next week i'll be getting ready to head to the airport to catch my flight to Heathrow, i've been away now for nearly 19 weeks!

So i'll either do another blog for san fran while i'm there, or you'll just have to come and see me and find out for yourself what Alcatraz was like!!!

Will see you all soon, looking forward to it

Loadsa love xxxxxx