2nd July ’12 Anchorage to Denali After flying over ridge upon ridge of snow covered mountain peaks we landed at Ted Stevens Airport at 5am Alaskan time (3am Hawaii time!). We had an hour’s wait until the car hire place opened and desperately tried to keep ourselves awake, having once again only managed the odd 10 minutes here and there of head nodding then jolting sleep. Anyway we finally got our car for the next two weeks and headed off into Anchorage for supplies. The first thing that struck up about Anchorage was the semi-circle of rugged mountains dominating the town and straight away Howard’s eyes lit up. Being Howard he had decided we were just going to drive the 300 miles up to Denali straight away rather than stay in Anchorage for a night to ... read more

24 & 25th June ’12 Kailua-Kona For the first time we actually managed to visit a couple of places and learn a bit about Hawaiian culture. On the first day we headed north along the coast highway past lots and lots of lava fields. For miles there were various names and dates picked out in white stones, at first I thought they were memorials and some may have been but the majority turned out to be a kind of graffiti saying things like Gazza loves Shazza (only with more Hawaiian sounding names). We were heading to Pu’ukohola Heiau – The Temple on the Hill of the Whale, a war temple which was built 1790-91 by the Kamehameha l , who became the King of the Islands. Prophecy told that Kamehameha was destined to rule all the ... read more

20th June ’12 Maui to Hawaii – The Big Island Well what an exciting start to our visit to the Big Island! We dropped the hire car off and when we were on the shuttle to the airport the driver asked us which airline we were travelling with, when we said Go! He just started laughing. He then said ‘have you flown with them before?’ yes we said, as we had from Kauai to Maui and ok it was a small plane (48 seater) but so what… he then went on about the high winds we had been having and said ‘oh you’re in for a treat’, we just looked puzzled. Our ‘terminal’ was a sort of a shed away from the main building and when we walked in there were only a handful of people ... read more

12th – 16th June ’12 Kauai After our very brief flight we were soon landing at Lihue Airport of Kauai. We picked up our rucksacks and walked outside to the car rental office, a bit of paperwork and a short shuttle bus drive and we were at the Enterprise office and in our hire car –a Dodge, which made me laugh. We found our accommodation – the Kauai Sands quite easily, it is a kind of giant motel, has a beach with very, very big rough waves and warning signs and a pool which has seen better days. Our room is nice, clean and has a fridge but the bed is full of springs. After dropping of our stuff we went out for a look around and found the Coconut Grove shopping centre just a couple ... read more

27th May Goodbye Motorhead Motor Home That morning we had the task of packing up, restoring the motor home to its former glory, giving away various bits and bobs to fellow campers and making up a big carrier bag of food to give to the Aboriginal people at the riverside in Alice. When we pulled up at the parking area none of the locals were in sight so we left the food near a bench for them in the hopes it would be of some use. Howard went up to the bank to see if anything could be done about the £250 the ATM had not given us but had taken out of our account, he came back with the news that they said they couldn’t do anything and it would have to be sorted out ... read more