Well there's not too much to say about my stay in San Diego because I spent most of it in or around the pool at the hotel. All the touristing had become a bit tiring. I did spend one day at San Diego zoo which just confirmed for me that Auckland Zoo is up there with the best, certainly in terms of the size and nature of the enclosures.

For the train from San Diego to San Francisco I missed out on a coach seat so unfortunately was "forced" to upgrade to a sleeper Roomette. The Roomette is basically a wee room with two opposing coach seats that fold down to make a bed. But more importantly being in sleeper accommodation meant I had access to the Parlour Car where they did a tasting of local wine and cheese. I won the prize for guessing that methophobia is the fear of alcohol.

Things learnt:

• there's nothing wrong with travelling halfway around the world just to lie by the pool all day

• some American's will take a motorised option to get anywhere (perfectly able bodied people use zoo buses and mobility scooters to get around a not particularly big zoo that already has escalators built in for the hills)

• don't cook fish in your hotel room