29.11.09

Hey from Hawaii! We had a horrible night flight from Fiji, we left at 10.30pm on Sunday 15th Nov, had a 6 hour flight but because of the time difference we were going backwards and therefore arrived in Hawaii at 6.30am the same sunday morning. We spent two days in Honolulu on Waikiki beach before going to the island of Kauai. We spent out first day on the beach, the weather was amazing and i've never seen so many bodyboarders in one place, of course Pete couldn't wait to get in the water. There was a little concert thing on the beach playing music and they had people singing and doing hula dancing. Monday 16th was Pete's birthday, we were going to get a bus to pipe line, a famous surf spot on the North Shore, but we knew we'd have some time in Honolulu again after Kauai so decided we'd go then. I bought Pete a cake the day before his birthday and had some candles to suprise him in the morning. The room we had you had to walk through the kitchen and 2 beds to get to it, I heard the guy staying outside our room in the morning drop something, I went out a bit later to get the cake out of the fridge to put the candels in and half of it was ruined..my guess is the guy was being nosey as to what was in the carrier bag in the fridge and dropped it..not that Pete minded, he'd eaten half of it within a few minutes. We had a wonder around Waikiki, its such a nice area and then we went back to the beach, its a gorgeous beach and a good surfing one. There is a pier bit called 'The Wall' where you can sit and on one side they have a wall going along the beach in the water so there is a really calm bit that the waves can't get into for swimming. I hired a boardboard and went in with Pete, the water was so warm its great, we spent a few hours in there and Pete went back in later and had a sunset surf. We went out for a meal in the evening, normally Petes birthday is spent in the cold so it was nice to spend the day surfing in Hawaii, Pete's first birthday surf!

We started getting really excited about going to Kauai as everyone we spoke to said how beautiful it is. We also got asked about 20 times if we were honeymooners- guess its a popular place for honeymoons. We got a tiny plane to Kauai on Tues 17th that took about half an hour. We hired a car as we'd read that there is pretty much no public transport on Kauai, we booked one with a big boot to keep our bags in as we were camping on Kauai. We got shown the car to find it had a tiny boot with no cover so we had to change it to the next one up, which ended up not being available so we ended up with a Dodge Charger, a huge posh car, the only good thing about it was the big boot! It was the first time i'd drove on the right hand side of the road but it was another automatic so was really easy to drive. We picked up the car in Lihue where the airport is and made our way north to our first campsite, Anohola. There is no motorway or anything just one main road that goes around the island. Kauai is pretty much a circle and the road goes most of the way around but doesn't meet up so if you are at Na Pali Coast in the North you can only get to the west side by going all the way back around the island. When were were driving to Anahola after we picked up the car, we were driving for about an hour and came to a dead end with a beach. We realised we'd drove all the way to Na Pali Coast, the end of the road in the North, about twice as far as we we're meant to go (there are hardly any road names! and turns out it only takes about 2 hours to get around the whole island). We finally found Anahola campsite, the sites are government run and are very basic with only toilets and cold showers, but all you really need and you have to get a permit but it only costs about $3 each a night. We got to the side when it was dark, put up the tent and met a Hawaiian guy who was also camping. He'd been there on the weekend with loads of people and had food left over so fed us up which was greatly appreciated as we had no food and no near by shops. The campsite was nice, night next to a beach but I was woken at 3am by a noise, and poked my head out of the tent to see 3 guys trying to break into the car next to ours. I rang the police who came literally in a second but they'd got into the car, taken some stuff and ran off. The police office said it was a crime spot and he was there early that evening to check it, we were meant to stay here one more night later in the week but decided we didn't fancy going back there. We couldn't really sleep the rest of the night, I was paranoid about the stupid posh rental car we had as we knew we had to pay for any damage etc. We got up early and went futher North to the next campsite, Anini. There were loads more people here and seemed safer, it was again right next to a beach, we camped here Wed- Sat. All the campsites close one day a week for cleaning etc so it means if you camp you have to move around the island quite abit to different campsites to avoid the closed days. Kauai is known as the 'Garden Island', its the oldest of the Hawaiian islands and the greenest, it reminded us alot of New Zealand, lots of green moutains and waterfalls. We renamed it the chicken island as they are everyone and really loud, we couldn't understand why they were everywhere until we read that they roam free around Kauai, theres a few theories as to how they established themselves on Kauai, apparently they are a rest but no has the heart or will to get rid of them. Kauai is also one of the wettest islands, there is a spot that is one of the wettest parts in the world, literally. We had a lovely few days on the North side of the island and on Saturday we drove all the way around the island to Salt Pond campsite. We hardly slept all night for many different reasons, we were worrying about the car and we generally didn't feel that safe so on Sunday we made a few calls and changed our flight and a few hours later we were flying back to Honolulu. Kauai is beautiful, alot like NZ, however we just didn't feel that safe, I think as we were camping and there were a few weird people also camping..so we'd advise staying in accomadation to people planning to go there.

We got back to Honolulu on Sunday 22th Nov and decided to go back to Waikiki as we loved it so much before. We stayed at a hostel near the one we stayed at before, however nicer and cheaper. On Monday we went to Pearl Harbour and had a free tour around there which was sad but really interesting. We pretty much spent a week chilling out on Waikiki beach, we kept hearing about the heavy rain and floods at home so we we're making the most of the sun, the weather has been great the whole time, apparently its pretty much the same all year round. On Thursday it was Thanks Giving so on Friday there was a Thanks Giving/ Christmas parade along the main street in Waikiki which was really great and today we finally got around to going to the North Shore! We had to get 2 buses and it took about 2 hours, we went to Sunshine Beach as there was a pro surfing competition going on. It was the womens competition today and as we'd just arrived Bethany Hamilton, a pro surfer from Kauai who had her whole left arm bitten off by a shark in Kauai's North Shore when she was 13 years old, came running past us! She went back to surfing literally a few weeks after the shark attack and is now a pro surfer- amazing! We'd had the best time in Hawaii, its defenatly a place to come for year round sunshine! We're off to San Fran tomorrow for one week and then we come home! We can't believe we're back in a week but looking forward to seeing everyone! Lots of love, Claire and Pete x