The End

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We left you in Auckland, where after nearly 4 weeks with the van, it was time to say goodbye. Quite a sad affair we had become quite attached over the time we had spent in it. However being a special occasion that is Nicks Birthday as a suprise Sarah had booked us into a lavish B n B for the night. Nick has no idea where we were stayng and was bowled over with the place that Sarah had chosen. We treated ourselves to dinner out in one of th many bars and restaurants in the area of ponsonby where we were staying. Then it was time to move on to Fiji.

We began our stay in Nadi but for only one night as we were staying on an island off the north shore of the mainland. It took us several hours by taxi having stopped for supplies at the local market and supermarket, ending our journey at Ellington Wharf where we caught our boat across to Nananu-i-ra. We loaded our only possesions into the small wooden boat and set off across the sea on a short ride to Bethams where we were due to stay. It didn't take us
long to settle into "fiji time" and we were in full relaxation mode. We were staying in a wooden cottage with all the facilites of a hotel room. Next to us in an ajoining cottage we met Rob and Lori who were also in the process of a world trip, not only that but then were from Devon....and to top it off we later met another couple on the small island who were from Exeter..what are the chances! So we got to know them quite well on our 8 nights at Bethams beach bottages. The island we were on consisted of about 7 resorts all very small and dotted all over the island. With there beng no roads each resort kept themselves to themselves. It was very different for us both being so on the go since we left home. We went to sunset point a hill on the island for a great view of (state the obvious) the sunset. The other main feature of the island was the tropical fish which you could snorkel to see them . the reef was so close to the waters edge you could just walk out on a jetty and climb in at the end. We even got to see blue starfish along side many other fantastically coloured fish. We tended to do a lot of relaxing other than that and i think we both got through 4 books each.
After our relaxing time in Fiji was up and we ate our last ice cream from Fiji and we were given a flower for our departure we got into the little red boat back to the main land and shared a taxi with Lori and Rob back to the airport. Joined by hundreds of other backpackers we boarded our plane to LA to begin the final leg of our trip. As we had decided to change ourplans slightly we made our way out of arrivals and straight back into checkin for our flight up to San Francisco. After a rigarous random search and a few hour wait ( as you can imagine we'd got pretty good at waiting in airports by now!) We boarded our plane, a small plane that looked similar to a private jet. Sat right at the front the 50 minute flight even included free drinks and snacks, no Easyjet type service here!

We arrived in a rather chilly San Francisco both pretty shattered after out 2 flights to get there. Having stayed our first night in a Motel near the airport we made our way into San Francisco city centre in order to find our home for the next couple of days and then make our way to the Wharf and Pier 33 to meet Rob and Lori (who had also gone up to San Francisco) for our Alcatraz experience. We made our way across the choppy harbour to the island, that although looked exactally like we thought it would, was alot smaller than we expected. The self guided audio tour gave a real insight into life inside "The Rock" and told us all the famous stories about the battles and escape attempts that occured during its time as a functioning prison. Once we had made it back to dry land we said our goodbyes to Lori and Rob and set about our power sight seeing tour of the rest of the city. We began by heading to Pier 39, home to numerous shops, eateries and entertainment venue. We took the oppertunity to capture another Hard Rock cafe picture to add to the collection from around the world. Our next destination was lombard street, we scaled the heights of the streets of San Francisco until we reached the Zig Zagging section of the infamous Lomard Street. We joined the crowd taking pictures and then made our way back through the Italien district of the town on our way back. Carrying on our journey of intense sight seeing we hired bikes to make our way across the Golden Gate Bridge. Although the photo opportunities were limited due to the low fog. We still embarked on our ride along with many other cyclists. Once reachng our destination over the other side of the bridge having gotten exceedingly chilly we got on to our next challenge of cycling back. An experience we were told not to miss werer the cable cars, not as you would imagine however, these werer trolly cars that went along the road being pulled by cables underneath the road. We joined many others in a queue for the ride into Union square, a very lively place with hundred of shops mainly designer but we did manage to buy one item each to get ourselves a 'little brown bag' yes we went to Bloomingdales. For all you Friends fans 'Bloomies' may ring a bell! After a good look around wishing we had the budget for all these incredible shops we headed back to our hotel.
The following day we picked up our car and having gained an upgrade to a convertable....even though a Crysler PT Cruiser in vanilla we had some great fun once we made our way out of San Francisco on incredible manic roads with crazy drivers, more than 3 lane traffic, driving on the wrong side of the road, in the wrong side of the car and a rule which seems to be there is no rules drive wherever you like, Nick managed really well! We took a 2 hour drive down to Monterey where we stopped for the night. The next day we had a look around Monterey at Fishermans Wharf and went to see the Huge Aquarium unfortunatly not having the time to see in it, we had to head onto Santa Barbara. We drove down the Big Sur a popular road track for the sightseeing right on the edge of the hills and over looking the sea we drove for miles. Bringing back memories of New Zealand with similarities. We decided to make a stop at a vista point getting out the car we noticed some chip monks scurrying around and the Noise of the some seals and then we looked over towards the beach to find it was completely covered in elephant seals just sleeping in the sun, some shedding their winter coat and incredible sight to see. It took another hour or two before we reached Santa Barbara and were ready for some sleep. Finally arriving in LA we drove down Hollywood Boulevard to find our place of rest and took the car back before we took our first tour. We visited the chinese theatre where there is to be Oceans 13 premiere on the 6th June. The walk of fame goes past it and last over 60 blocks on both sides of the road. Our took us to see the Hollywood sign which looked very surreal and just as it does on the TV. We also saw Hollywood Bowl with its thousands of seats where they old all sorts of concerts. We even got to see the Paramount studios which are huge. We took tour number 2 shortly after the first, this was the Movie stars Homes tour. We started off seeing a couple of houses used in the films Halloween and the original Father of the Bride movie. The we headed out to the houses of current residence such as Robbie Williams, Bruce Willis, Leonardo di Caprio, Madonna. Some of these most of them being in Bel Air the most expensive place in LA and these mansions you couldn't even begin to describe as to how huge they looked some of them were like small hotels. We even saw Harrison Ford in his Drive Way! The tour lasted a good 2 hours and took us down Rodeo Drive, there is a Mens shop there that you have to make an appointment to go in and the lowest priced item in $22,000 and if you don't buy anything you have to pay $1,500 for wasting their time!! What's that all about.
On our last day we took a trip to Universal Studios there were hundreds of people there yet it didn't feel really busy. We headed straight off to the studio tour which takes you around where the films are filmed. We got to go around all the outside sets used in Many films for Westerns, New York and European city scapes, we then continued around the back lot to witness how they recreate weather effects such as rain, thunder and the resultant flooding! We also got to witness the plane crash site from the film War of the Worlds, which believe it or not was a real 747 that they bought and tore apart to recreate the scene! The tour also led us down Wisteria Lane, for all you Desperate Housewive fans! The rest of our time at the studios was spent visiting the variety of different movie themed rides, from Jurrasic Park, where you ride an 84 foot water drop, and get a extreme drenching in the process, to the special effects sets, where they show you how some of the classic movie effects are created!
After a pretty tiring day we headed to the Hard Rock Cafe, for our final dinner whilst travelling then headed back to our Motel in the knowledge that when we woke up we'd be going home!
In the morning we made our way to the airport, and prepared ourselves for the iminent 10 hour flight home, and in true Hollywood fashion still had time to do a little celebrity spotting as Cat Deely boarded our plane for the flight back to Heathrow!
So that was it our trip was officially coming to an end. But the experiences we've had over the last 4 months have been priceless and truely the time's of our lives.

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Comments

[Cath]

Thank you!
for sharing your fantastic trip with us all, what an amazing experience you've had. I've really enjoyed your blog and pictures. Bet it's kind of nice to be back home though??!