Ciaraandphilrtw

We ended up having to take a flight from San Francisco. We looked into going to Reno and then driving down to Vegas, but rental companies either didn't do one way rentals to those locations, or they were charging far to much for 1 days rental. The flight was only an hour long. We could see Lake Mead and the strip as we came into land. The airport is right behind the strip. Too close really for comfort. The approach to the airport was a little bumpy, as Vegas is in a valley surrounded by mountains. Only on our arrival did we find out it was monsoon season too. When you disembark from the plane you are greeted by one arm bandits. Not the real thing but the slot machine, so you can start gambling straight ... read more

We landed in L.A. from the Cook Islands. The immigration people took my photo and a couple of finger prints. We were lucky that we were the only flight going through at the time so the process was quick. We took a shuttle bus to Hollywood, stopping to let people off long the way. A couple of people were staying in the down town area, so we got to see the street theatre. It was full of freaks and we were so glad we were not staying around there. Our hotel was 2 minutes from Hollywood Boulevard, were the Hollywood walk of fame is located. This was not a great attraction. It was a little tatty and run down. The real highlight was the Grauman's Chinese Theatre. This is the location were the stars put their ... read more

The ferry trip from Picton to Wellington was a wash out as it was peeing it down. We were lucky as there was a big storm on it's way later in the day, so it wasn't that rough. We arrived in Wellington at about 1pm and had tospend an hour our so sorting out another hire car as we left the other one in Picton. We made our way to Napier, an Art Deco city due to the fact the city was destroyed in an earthquake in 1931. The motels in the city all have spa baths, but ours had the spa bath in the bedroom. The next day we headed to Rotorua. This place has it all. Thermal springs, we visited the Polynesian Spa. It is probably best to visit this spa in the cooler ... read more

We visited the beach where Home and Away is filmed just north of Sydney, a one and a half to two hour local bus trip. There are no tours to the area so it is a DIY job. We saw the Surf Life Saving Club where Alf and co hang out. They haven't been filming there though for a couple of weeks, so there was no action to see. We were informed that if you call channel 7 before hand they can tell you where the filming is taking place. We were there in winter time. It was a little chilly. The poor actors have this amazing location to go to work, but will have to wear summer clothes in the cold weather, now that is not fun. They also have to act like it is ... read more

At present we are travelling up the east coast of Australia- by means of the Greyhound bus system - from Sydney to Cairns. So far we have stopped at Port Macquarie, Byron Bay, Brisbane and at present we are in Hervey Bay, the gate way to Fraser Island, aka as The Great Sandy Island or at least it was up until the 1800's. We have completed our Sydney to Cairns trip. We went to Magnetic Island off Townsville, visited the Whitsunday Islands and the Great Barrier Reef. We would really recommend the companies we did the tours with. For the Whitsunday tour we went with ReefJet. The crew were really informative and if you want to try an introductory dive it doesn't cost an arm and a leg. There is also a photographer on board to ... read more