Glou

The Pink View California. I think I like it. No, make that, I know I like it. A week just isn't long enough though. We would have loved to have visited Yosemite, San Diego and to have been able to cross the border to Mexico, but you just can't do that all in a week. That said, I am not at all disappointed that we decided to confine our trip to LA, Highways 101 and 1 and San Francisco. There is something very familiar about this part of the US. At least, I think there is. It could just be that, when you have home in your sights, everything starts to feel that little bit more familiar. To emphasise just how British I am - we have been extremely lucky with the wether. Beautiful sunshine ... read more

3 March 2011 Our last road tripping morning of this trip. The plan for today, to make it from San Luis Obispe to San Francisco, The Foggy city. Opposite the Travelodge (which looked, from the outside, just like the motels that you see in movies. I was slightly concerned that the bad guys were going to burst in with guns at any moment but the town was a little sleepy for that and, in any event, we had left Hollywood far behind) was a garage and it was time to fill up. This isn't an event that would usually justify entry in the blog but today was different. All petrol stations in the US seem to be pre-pay which caused us considerable confusion, particularly since the pump wouldn't accept a british card as payment. Eventually, ... read more

27 February 2011 Actually, it was 27 Feb before the end of Gregg’s last blog but it seemed fitting for us to leave Rarotonga in that one and arrive in LA in this. Here I go then. I categorically cannot sleep on flights, much as I really want to. I think that I managed the combined grand total of about 2 hours last night between moments of sheer desperation at the uncomfortable nature of airline sleeping arrangements. We are going to have to a find a way to make serious amounts of cash before we ever do this again, that’s all there is for it - business class has got to be so much better. Hasn’t it? Air New Zealand’s flight crew continued this morning as they had left off last night - serving us ... read more

25th February 2011 Our penultimate morning in the Cook Islands started overcast, and was threatening rain, not a promising start. We had decided that we would attempt to go to the cultural market, that we knew takes place on a Saturday morning, a day early as we thought being a market it may be on everyday. So getting on the bike off we headed at the early hour of 8am. We arrived in town not much later to an almost deserted market place, with only a few stalls being set up. Maybe we were too early, everybody works on “island time” after all. So we headed further into town to grab something for breakfast and to give the place a chance to liven up whilst we did. We even asked in the supermarket whilst buying ... read more

21st February 2011 Our second morning waking up in our new abode, was also the point at which we had decided enough was enough and the extreme heat of our room was just too much to allow us to sleep properly. The lack of aircon in this place is rather annoying and as a result I woke many times in the night covered in sweat - its like having a fever but not being ill. So this morning our first task was to go to the airport to visit the Air New Zealand office and see what we could do about changing our flights. We had already decided that we couldn’t afford to come home as late has we had planned, but the flight we wanted to leave on was within the ten day period ... read more