We made good use of family contacts and managed to bag a couple of train tickets up to Chicago where we had a day to look around the city before hopping on our long bus journey to Toronto. We went on the city bus tour and saw lots of interesting stuff, the Wrigley's building, planetarium, the heaviest building in America (possibly just Chicago i forget now!), the navy pier (and its imitation London Eye) and the stunning Lake Michigan which was beautiful to look at on such a clear sunny day! Several long hours later we arrived in Toronto to be [View Full Entry]

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We arrived after a fairly normal flight, looking forward to meeting a big chunk of the Hart family and a brave Auntie Sandra and Cousin Kate were there to collect us despite the early hour! It was great to finally see them and Auntie Sandra still has a Brummie 'twang' mixed in with her American which was cool. after a quick bite to eat i headed for a nap while Matt and Kate had a gossip. Kate and Ryan's house is beautiful and the spare room was most welcome! Later on we met Ryan after he had been to work [View Full Entry]

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Everybody goes to.. Hollywood!!! After an overnight bus journey that took about 2 hours less than scheduled we arrived in downtown LA at the greyhound station. (we think the driver put his foot down anticipating a lot of traffic from the MJ memorial service-yes we were in LA for that monumental day!!) We hopped on a couple of buses which was relativly straight forward and arrived in Santa Monica about 3 hours earlier than anticipated.We took a little walk along the beachfront and arrived at the Ryder's apartment..our home for the next couple of days. Turning up tired, messy in hoodies [View Full Entry]

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Frisco...our first views..Smog, smog and more smog- no golden gate bridge or alcatraz or anything remotely recognisable..so straight to our residence.. the first motel EVER in San Fran. (yes you must be thinking hell its a bit old and rundown now..but NO! it was suprisingly lovely!) A little walk on the wild side.. past the zoo and onto the beach for a brief ooooh its COLD before heading to a nearby Italian restauraunt owned by a greek family staffed by americans..as you do. They really work for their tips here-flirting with mum and recommending bars and clubs for 4th July celebrations! [View Full Entry]

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From Vegas we drove another fair distance and braved the high temperatures of death valley to reach Mammoth Lakes. Matt was occupied for a large portion of the journey by conspiracy theories surrounding 'Area 51' and it's possible whereabouts.. (he saw a sign-like it would be THAT obvious!) Approaching Mammoth was a little surreal as we headed through blistering heat we had a perfect view of snow-capped mountains and signs for shops selling skis etc!! Our hostel was a very 'quaint' little log cabin type arrangement with bunk beds made of big logs and bear carvings all over it. We met [View Full Entry]

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Next stop L.A.. but a brief stop before being whisked away in our charriot with mum over the desert plains to the strip! We spent most of the journey chatting about what mum had been getting up to the previous week and filling her in on the hardships of living out of a rucksack and living off noodles! We watched the landscape alter considerably from tourist tack to literally almost nothing but desert and what seemed to be random little towns dumped in the middle connected by a highway. We got excited about reaching Vegas twice..once when we weren't there and [View Full Entry]

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Feeling very much like we were on a flight to Benidorm we survived the 3 hours over to the Cook Islands. Families galore on the flight spent the time thoroughly over-excited and cheered once we'd landed...very bizarre but then again i suppose it is sort of their spain-being only 3 hours accross - i know i'd prefer to come here for sure!! Queuing to go through arrivals there was a little man playing the ukelele ina straw hat and flowery shirt-very tropical!! Going through arrivals we were a little stuck as we couldn't remember which hostel Matt had booked for us..there [View Full Entry]

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The ferry crossing from Picton was pretty calm and we both had a little nap. Excitingly we managed to see a huge pod of dolphins swimming alongside the ferry and a Whale too although i could only get photographs of the splashes by the time i got outside! We were only in Wellington for one night to begin with but we managed to have a brief look around the museum in the morning and then went in search of more geeky LOTR stuff at the Weta Cave where lots of the props and computer images etc was done for the films [View Full Entry]

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From Franz Josef we made our way down to Wanaka stopping at Lake Matheson to get some beautiful shots of Mt Cook's reflection in the water. Wanaka is set beside lake Wanaka and is a small town which is very pretty, we had a nice hostel and chilled out before heading down to the bar underneath for a few drinks but the music was a little out of our taste so we didn't stay too long- although long enough to discover one of the guys from our bus knew cousin Ste from playing football with him at Exeter-small world! From Wanaka [View Full Entry]

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Christchurch - Nelson We landed in Christchurch after a mere 4 hours of flying expecting to be met by polar condiitions requiring 17 layers of clothing from warnings we had been given after 6months of Aussie Summer, however we were pleasently suprised to walk out of the airport to glorious sunshine with only a slight chill! We headed off to the centre of town on the bus, and checked into our hostel before heading out for a brief walk around the cathedral square and surrounds but as we are returning to Christchurch later on we didn't see much. First impressions of [View Full Entry]

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