Today we took a morning trip over to Alcatraz on the ferry. The day started out foggy and was quite cold. The tour of Alcatraz and the visit to "The Rock" was excellent and certainly well worth the visit and the hill climb! This afternoon we took a cruise sound the Harbour, under Golden Gate Bridge and around Alcatraz. The bridge has been covered in fog for most of the day so our photos aren't great. As we cruised under the bridge we had porpoises swimming near t...

We arrived into San Francisco last night and took the BART bus and train to the wharf area then a taxi to our hotel. After checking in we headed to the wharf area - the wind was freezing cold - and found Boudins for clam chowder in a sour dough roll for our tea - it still tastes as good as the first time we tried it! This morning we headed up to the cable car station and bought a day pass - our first stop at Lombard St. Peter could not get over the hills and ste...

On Monday afternoon we took a tour to the eastern part of Oahu. We went past numerous beaches and stopped at Hanauma Bay nature preserve which was a lovely snorkeling beach that originated as a lake in a volcanic crater - one edge of the rim eroded and opened it to the sea. We moved along the coast and saw a blowhole through a lava tube. The mountain range along this part of the island was stunning and had clouds hugging the top of it. As we moved inland and up t...

We started early and spent the whole day today out at Pearl Harbour. The USS Arizona Memorial was amazing - the memorial straddles the sunken battleship where hundreds of men are on 'eternal duty' - I was amazed to hear that any survivors of the battleship can choose to be interred with their fellow crew when they die. From the Arizona we went onto the USS Missouri and toured above and below decks, seeing where the papers were signed to end the Pacific War. There...

We arrived in Hawaii early on the morning of the 26th and walked down to Waikiki beach. Our hotel is only a few blocks from the beach and there are a multitude of shops, places to eat and shopping centres in between. Yesterday we got onto the tourist bus and had a bit of a tour around the island. We stopped and had a look over the Harbour from the Aloha Tower. In the evening we went down to the beach and looked at the sunset. Today we went to an army museum on th...