Kia Ora from New Zealand

Auckland

Hi all, sorry I’ve not written on here for a while, but to be honest my first week in New Zealand was a little bit dull and I wanted to have something interesting to tell you all! I spent my first 3 days in Auckland, the biggest city in the country and also apparently the 4th biggest in the world (measured by area, not population), and I was met with the cold and rain, it was just like being back home again! My flight arrived at around 8:00am local time, and I was feeling pretty tired so day 1 I just decided to take it easy and have a walk around the city centre. And there’s not much to it. A few shops, cafes etc etc. A pretty small city centre for a city so massive. It turned out that I was in a dorm room all on my own so I was not in the best situation to meet people, but it was nice to have a bit of peace and quiet! Day 2 I went to Kelly Tarlton’s Antartic Encounter, an aquarium very similar to our Deep Sea World back home, complete with a moving tunnel walkway, a stingray bay and also a penguin colony (orginally from Edinburgh Zoo!). Day 3 I walked to Domain Park, the city’s oldest park and the home of Auckland Museum which I had a look at. On their ground floor they had many Maori ‘taonga’ (treasures), dating back thousands of years from before the discovery of New Zealand by the European’s so it was pretty interesting.

The next day, I began my Kiwi Experience up to the Bay of Islands. It was really horrible weather once we got up to Paihia so we were unable to do much, a few of us just sat in a pub and waited for our hostel barbecue and quiz that night. I’m sure it is a really lovely place to go to in summer, but in winter if the weather is bad it does totally restrict you as pretty much all the activities are meant for the outdoors. The next day, the weather cleared up a bit, and we headed up to the North Island’s most northwestern point, Cape Reinga. Here we walked along to the Reinga Lighthouse, and we were able to see where the Pacific Ocean meets the Tasman Sea, and it was pretty wild! Next stop was the sand dunes for sandboarding, which entailed lying face forward on a boogie board and flying down huge sand dunes. It was kind scary to look at as the dunes were really high and steep, but so much fun to do and definately the highlight of the Bay of Islands trip. Last stop before heading for fish & chips, was to Ninety Mile Beach. Here, we drove along the sand and in the surf, then we almost got stranded on the beach as the driver couldn’t get the bus back onto the road, oops! That evening we were pretty wrecked after such a long day we had an early-ish night so we were well rested for the next day and our drive back to Auckland. We didn’t have to leave till mid afternoon, so in the morning a few of us took the ferry over to neighbouring Russell Island. Again, I’m sure it’s lovely in the summer, but not really anything to do! But, at least we wasted some time before our trip back to the city, and we weren’t sat around bored all day in the hostel or a bar again!

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The City of Angels

Hollywood Sign

Our 3 days in LA were mostly spent in Hollywood because of my love of movies, and Daan’s growing love (much to my persuasion!). Day 1 we took a Star Homes tour, which went through Beverly Hills and Bel Air. There we saw many, many homes of the rich and famous, including Steven Spielberg, Sean Connery, Tom Cruise and the former estate of Elvis Presley. Unfortunately we did not spot anyone famous, neither did we for the rest of the trip, to my extreme disappointment! We also went along Sunset Boulevard and saw many famous hotels, restaurants and bars like the Viper Room, the nightclub where the actor River Phoenix tragically overdosed years ago. We then took another tour around town, where we saw the Paramount Studios, the Max Factor Building and the famous Roosevelt Hotel, where the very first 12 minute long Academy Awards were held. After looking outside the Chinese Grauman’s Theatre (where all the star’s have left their hand & footprints in cement), we went into the Kodak Theatre to take a tour round the building where the Oscars have been held since the year 2000. The tour was pretty short, but it was amazing to see exactly where the star’s go and what they do for that one night every year. We were also privilaged to see a real Oscar, in fact I think we saw about 8 of them. They look so much bigger in reality! That evening, we had wander abou the Guiness World of Records Museum and the Hollywood Wax Museum. Neither were really anything to rave about, and I don’t think in normal circumstances we would have gone in to either, but they were included in an attraction pass that we had puchased so it wasn’t like we wasted any money on them!

Day 2 we got up early to head out to the Warner Brother’s Studios. We took a tour which took a couple of hours and explored around the sets and stages and finally to their museum holding costumes and props from previous productions. It was good fun although a lot of the sets were all for American TV shows that we didn’t really know. However we saw the entrance to ER and also the set where Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst kiss upside down in Spiderman, and a few places where Friends was filmed. The highlights were walking into Central Perk and seeing the Batmobile that George Clooney used in the Batman films. We were also able to go onto the set of Two and A Half Men and were talked through the filming process which was really interesting. After lunching at a restaurant called Wink-E where we both had computers where we could order our food & play games (an unsociable way of dining out, but good fun all the same!), we took a walking tour around Hollywood Boulevard with an ex Beefeater from Newcastle. He was such a good tour guide, and although some of the things he mentioned we had already heard, he had a great way of telling them. The company was called ‘Red Line Tours’ if you ever go to LA then it’s really a great way to see some of the Hollywood spots. Then we took the bus along to a shopping mall in Farmer’s Market, and finally ended up on Sunset Boulevard where Daan took me out for dinner to a restaurant called ‘Ketchup’ owned by Ashton Kutcher & Demi Moore. The decor was fab and the food even better. We agreed that it had been our best meal of the trip so a perfect end to our holiday.

Our last day together we had hoped to head out to the beach and simply relax, but we found out it was going to take 1.5 hours to get there in each direction and with us having to be at the airport by 6 at the latest we thought we’d better give it a miss. Instead we went to the Hollywood Museum in the old Max Factor Building and I am so glad we did. The Musuem holds more that 5,000 artifacts from the film industry dating back to the days of Greta Garbo and Marilyn Monroe. We saw Dorothy’s Ruby Slippers, Hannibal Lector’s mask, and costumes from movies such as Gone With the Wind and Some Like It Hot. There was a whole floor showing a Marilyn Monroe exhibition which included personal items of hers; cheques, correspondence, dresses, make up, photos, even one of her marriage certificates and the medical autopsy which ‘disappearred’ after her death. It was all really interesting and another recommendation for anyone going to Los Angeles. We then had time for a quick walk to a nearby park before heading to the airport to say our goodbyes 😦

Hwy 1

Our trip down Highway 1 didn’t exactly start out as we expected it to… We were renting a hire car from a company called Alamo – DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY EVER! We waited FOUR HOURS for our rental car, in a queue of about 30 people… it was ridiculous and neither of us were happy at all. It completely ruined our road trip as we were supposed to be stopping off in a place called Monterey to visit an aquarium but by the time we got there it was too late to go. Daan will tell you all the full story when he sees you I’m sure! That night we were spending in a place called Cambria, which is roughly halfway between San Francisco and Los Angeles. When we arrived at our accommodation, the owner was so sympathetic towards us and our bad day that she upgraded us to a Kingsize room which was so kind. We stayed in a motel called the Creekside Inn, if you’re ever travelling up or down Highway 1 we would recommend it, it was such a nice and friendly place to stay.

The following day, we went to see a mansion called ‘Hearst Castle’, a palential estate build by newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst, built over 40,000 acres and housing 56 bedrooms, tennis courts, 2 swimming pools, a movie theatre and even an airfield. Many of the rich and famous were often asked to visit by Hearst, including Winston Churchill, Clark Gable and Charlie Chaplin, and we were told of how Hearst used to entertain them with formal dinners, shows and movies in the 20’s and 30’s. It was a magnificent castle to visit, so big we were unable to see the whole grounds but we did see both swimming pools, one of his guesthouses, the dining room among others. Hearst was a really interesting man to learn about, and had a passion for European and Egyptian artifacts which were present all over his mansion.

Our second stop was Santa Barbara, which was short but sweet! We stopped by the beach and ate dinner in the sunshine before heading on to our last destination – Los Angeles.

The Golden Gateway to California

Golden Gate Bridge

The first day in San Francisco I spent alone as Daan had to return the aircraft to San Diego. I didn’t want to do anything I might do with Daan in the days to come, so I just decided to take it easy and have a stroll through Chinatown to Fisherman’s Wharf (up and down all the way, SF is such a hilly city!), and back up to Washington Square Park in the North Beach area, near where we were staying. The weather was gorgeous, so I decided to sit in the park for a while, and guess who I think I was sitting next too… George Lucas! I’m not 100% sure, but some guy walked past us and shouted his name, so I looked up his picture later on and I’m pretty sure it was the same person! Pretty cool, huh?

Our second day (Daan’s first), we got up early for our trip to Alcatraz, aka ‘The Rock’, the high security federal prison which operated for almost 30 years in the 20th century and housed many infamous criminals such as Al ‘Scarface’ Capone, Robert Stroud ‘The Birdman of Alcatraz’, and George ‘Machine Gun’ Kelly. We took a ferry across to the island, then watched a short documentary on the history of the island and then began an audio tour of the prison itself. We learned about a typical day as an inmate, the life of a prison officer and their family who often all lived on the island itself, and what I found most fascinating – the many attempts to escape the island, none of which are thought to have been successful. One escape attempt was made in 1962 by 3 prisoners (made famous by the film ‘Escape from Alcatraz’ with Clint Eastwood), who spent 2 years building rafts and lifelike dummies, and digging vents through their cells before they attempted their escape. They are thought to have drowned but their bodies were never found.

Once we returned to the mainland, we had to abandon our idea of biking the Golden Gate Bridge because of the weather, we were afraid we wouldn’t actually be able to see anything through the fog. Don’t be fooled if you visit San Francisco, you may think that the sun always shines in California but you would be wrong! It’s cold, windy and very foggy! Apparently the weather I’d had on my first day was completely out of sorts for a San Francisco summer, usually it will get better in late summer/early autumn but this time of year it’s just miserable! So instead of our bike ride, we decided on a bus ride Downtown, and we ventured up Lombard Street ‘The Most Crookedest Street in the World’.

Day 3 we began with a climb up Coit Tower to admire the views over the city. We were able to see right out to Fisherman’s Wharf, Lombard Street, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Transamerica Pyramid. We then did the rest of the Downtown bus tour, to take us to Fisherman’s Wharf so we could do our bike across the bridge. This was by far the best thing I’ve done on my trip so far, although ‘The Little Mermaid’ comes a close second! It was so much fun to cycle along the coast to the bridge, the views were fantastic and it was more of an achievement to bike it than go by car or even walk. I would thoroughly recommend doing this in San Francisco! We then embarked on another bus tour, this time the Nightime tour, which took us through a few new places, like Japantown, Pacific Heights, the Tenderloin and Nob Hill. We covered a lot of the same ground as we had already done, like Chinatown, Fisherman’s Wharf and the Financial District but it was worth it just to see the famous ‘Painted Ladies’ on Alamo Square or ‘Postcard Row’ as it is sometimes known, 7 colourful Victorian style houses all worth a small fortune and quite rightly so. To end the night, we went into Chinatown to sample some Dim Sum, which was better than I expected but not what I would eat on a regular basis!

Our last day we rose early to do our last bus tour, the Golden Gate Loop. This tour incorporated not only the bridge but the surrounding areas too, including the Palace of Fine Arts and Presidio – an old military camp turned into an expensive housing estate and National Park, also including my friend George’s production company ‘Lucasfilm’. Then we took our first ride on San Francisco’s famous cable cars across town to Union Square to hit the shops, treating ourselves to some new clothes and shoes. Next on the schedule was Golden Gate Park, for which we would have liked to have spent longer exploring but there are only so many hours in every day. We walked through the Japanese Tea Garden which was a treat for the eye, and then Shakespeare Garden which was nice but a little bit disappointing as there was not much to it. We stopped off in the Mission area to see the Mission Dolores and to grab a taco before heading back to our hostel to get changed, for we were heading to the Carnelian Room for dinner that night. The Carnelian Room is a restaurant on the top floor of the Bank of America Building which has amazing views over San Francisco. The food was excellent, our view was not! We were given table in the middle of the restaurant so therefore had limited access to the famous views but we still enjoyed our dinner.

Overall impression of San Francisco was not quite as expected, especially the weather, but it is still a nice place to visit all the same.

Lake Tahoe

Lake Tahoe

There’s not really a lot we have to say about Lake Tahoe, we arrived late on in the day and all we did was take a boat ride over the lake and then sat on the beach for a bit. It’s a really lovely place although the visibility was very poor due to the Forest Fires which have been happening all over California. Lake Tahoe is more a winter destination as once the snow has fallen come October/November all the ski slopes open, but it is still a very beautiful place in the summer, it’s only a shame that the sky was full of smoke! We were a little worried we wouldn’t be able to take off in our aircraft the following day to head on to San Francisco but luckily by morning it had cleared up a bit!

Yosemite National Park

Daan & I at Tunnel View

Our 5th and final National Park in America was Yosemite, CA, which we had decided to spend 2 days exploring. Our 1st day we arrived mid afternoon, so with not much time to spare we headed to the highest viewpoint we could reach in the car, Glacier Point. Here we could overlook the highest peak, a granite rock named Half Dome and also see the famous Yosemite Falls in the distance, America’s highest waterfall. Then as we headed into Yosemite Valley, we noticed people crowding round the forest trees, someone had spotted a black bear and her 2 cubs walking through the trees. Unfortunately we were unable to get any pictures as the bears were a distance away and kept walking out of view, but it was still amazing to watch. We then drove down towards the Valley and stopped off at Tunnel View, another lookout point where we could see El Capitan, another granite rock slightly smaller than Half Dome and also another waterfall called Bridalveil Falls. We managed to walk to Bridalveil for a closer look before heading back to our accommodation for the night… a tent. Not just an ordinary tent, as I’m sure you all know I’m not really an outdoor kind of gal, it had electricity and a double bed, but was still pretty basic accommodation all the same.

On our second day, we first decided to get a closer look at Yosemite Falls. We reached the very bottom and discovered we could scramble across some rocks to sit beside the lower part of the falls where we had a lovely picnic beside the water. It was a very impressive spot, but as with all these places there were too many other people around! We then took the park’s shuttle bus to Mirror Lake, which at this time of summer there is not much lake left since it is formed by the melting from the mountains in winter. A pity, since if the lake was filled up we would have seen the reflection of Half Dome in the water which would have been an amazing sight. Our last stop of the day was at Mariposa Grove, to the south of the park, an area famous for it’s giant sequoia trees. We took a walk through the forest, passing the ‘Fallen Tree’ on the way (pretty self-explanatory!), to the oldest and biggest of them all the ‘Grizzly Giant’ reaching a massive 209 feet tall and an age of 2700 years old, making it the oldest sequoia known.

Then we headed back to our tent for the night, deciding on the fact that Yosemite was our favourite National Park we had visited on our travels, although it is a shame all these places are so touristy but I guess it can only be expected at such beautiful locations.

50 Degree Heat

Badwater Basin

On Saturday, we headed to back into California to see Death Valley National Park, the hottest, driest and lowest valley in the USA. when we arrived the temperature was in the 40s, but as the day wore on it rose to 50 degrees. Although it was a dry heat, it is so hot it is practically unbearable. The heat was rather restricting as we could not stay in the sun for long, we ended up in the car with the air conditioning on full blast for most of the trip and many of the points of view are only accessible by foot.
We did however manage to see Badwater Basin, the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere at 282 feet below sea level. Badwater is a small spring-fed pool, which is undrinkable due to the salt crusts of the surrounding basin, hence the name. We also drove along Artist’s Drive to see the different coloured rocks, caused by the oxidation of different metals, and the Sand Dunes looked amazing but were too far away to go on foot so we had to admire them from afar!

The heat in Death Valley is not something I would like to experience again, but the park itself was very promising and I would maybe venture back in the winter time when it’s a little bit cooler!

Beautiful Bryce

Rocks at Bryce Canyon

Daan and I were both awestruck when we laid eyes on Bryce Canyon, it’s beautiful orange rocks and unusual structure make the canyon truly unique. We were amazed when we stood at the top, but we ventured on a short mile hike (it was too hot for anything more!) which had been recommended to us by a Welsh couple we had met in the Grand Canyon, and the sights from down below were even more remarkable. The orange tones were complimented beautifully by the green trees all around, the colours were so vibrant it was like being in a Kodak advert! If you’re ever in the area you must go, it is a truly spectacular sight.

Grand Canyon National Park

View over Grand Canyon

Our second flight was a lot more enjoyable than our first flight. We saw some amazing sights of the Grand Canyon too from the sky which is not an opportunity many people get so I guess I could call myself lucky! Again it was a very sunny day, and we felt it was too hot to walk far, so we admired the Canyon from the top of the South Rim. I have to admit, the Canyon was a bit of a disappointment for me so I’m not going to write too much about it. It is still hugely impressive due to the sheer size, but it was not as colourful as I had imagined it to be, even at sunset. We may have had nicer views if we’d trekked down into the valley, but as we only had half a day and not a lot of water we knew we wouldn’t make it far. It’s still nice to see, but in comparison to Bryce Canyon (our next stop), it was nowhere near as stunning.

Palm Springs

Palm Springs Sunset

On our second day in California, we made our way to the airfield where our rented aircraft was kept. I got a bit of a shock when I saw the size of our little Piper Archer, and although our first flight was a short one, my anxiety got the better of me and I failed to enjoy it at all, apart from the moment we landed on the ground again! Our first flight was to Palm Springs and after landing we headed straight to Joshua Tree National Park. At the visitor centre we were greeted by a rather interesting man called Caveman Steve. Caveman Steve gave himself this name as he lives in a cave, with a snake I might add. Apparently he gets on well with snakes, with the exception of rattlesnakes perhaps as he’s been bitten by them 3 times, once he had to go to hospital and twice he sucked out the poison himself. As I said, an interesting man!

Joshua Tree National Park was our first national park out of 5. To describe it, I could only really say it contains Joshua Trees and rocks. But it was very pretty and we were glad we went, although we could not do much whilst we were there as it was just too damn hot, being in the middle of the desert and all. We then drove back to Palm Springs and had a walk along the main street, but again it was too hot to stay outside for long, so after a Frappaccino we headed on to our Holiday Inn, had a quick sunbathe & swim in the pool before heading to our room. Which was more like a suite, we had a huge bedroom with a massive bed, and a separate sitting area and a huge balcony. And not one but two TVs. It was lovely to stay in the luxury of a hotel, as the next days we would be spending in motels, and even tents. We would have liked to have stayed on in Palm Springs another night, probably only for the hotel, but next day we were headed for Arizona and the Grand Canyon.