On my Way Home!

So that was it. We got back to the hotel in time to watch "Family Guy" before collapsing under sore legs from standing all afternoon. The next morning was our last free breakfast (so made the most of it!) before we headed out to Hudson's river for a little while enjoying the view and sunshine. That was after a well needed haircut (my hair had taken a lot of punishment after 6 months without conditioner) before it was back to the hotel to pack our now massive and extremely heavy backpacks just one last time for this trip! Bloomin' backpacks...dead handy but by Jove they kill your back when you fill them with lots of crap!

So here we are, waiting to get the subway back to the airport for the British Airways flight back to London. It's weird 6 months have passed. It will be weirder being surounded by british accents again and not that of Aussies or Americans! It seems to have gone quick but then when I look back on say, Australia...that seems ages ago! So much has been squashed in since then.

I've really enjoyed travelling: the flights, the places, the views, the atmosphere, the activities, the hostels, meeting loads of people from around the world who are all in the same boat! ...Though I won't miss the long string of the same questions you get when you talk to anyone new (which is every day): "Where are you from?, Where are you going?, Where have you been?, How long you're travelling for?, What did you do at uni? Have you finished? What are you going to do when you get back?" And on. I bet I will miss it though. It's funny the one thing you hardly ask is what someone's name is! Then you chat to them for a long time, that is feels like it's too late to ask them. Crazy.

I've loved every minute of these past 6 months....well, except the moments when I've had slight food poisoning AND the occassions when we've found ourselves so unexpectedly on long, steep, up-hill walks with seemingly no end in sight and can only lead to sore legs the next day. But life has been good! I have a million and one memories and experiences to cherish and have picked up enough souveniors to fill every crevice of my already overwhelmed backpack! It's truly been an utterly, incredibly, most fantastically splendiferious adventure and now I'm on my way home and insearch of a cup of tea.



14/10/2007 - Update: After coming through "Arrivals" in my "new" New York jumper, and complete with a cup of tea after a balloon and "Welcome Home" banner-filled welcoming, I'm well and truly home now!!! Until the next trip that is! ; )

Thanks for reading my wanderings and all the comments, bye for now!

Carla xx

New York, New York!

Soon it was time to return back to San Francisco driving through the night, hence more sleeping on a moving coach. Except this time I was so tired that somehow I managed to get to sleep before the coach even started moving, so I was OK and only awoke once we were back at the bus terminal! After the goodbyes we headed to the BART train to get to the airport. It being 7am in the morning we were really quite early for our 3.45pm flight and asked to change on to an earlier one. Which we did (joy of joys!) but this meant we had to go through a secondary screening procedure where they put you in a chamber and blew puffs of air at you (very odd) and take clothes samples, check through all your stuff and make you wait. We ended up being nearly late for our 11am flight! Thank goodness for delays!

After watching "Evan Almighty" on the plane we arrived in New York. It was already dark, it was raining and the information guy at the airport was not at all helpful. We eventually got a shuttle to the hotel (but the driver was a mean guy). Our first impressions of New York weren't great. But then we arrived at the Embassy Suites hotel and collapsed in our suite complete with TVs, soft double beds (no more sleeping bags), white fluffy towels (no more " travel microtowel"), dressing gowns, shampoo, free stuff and a bathroom with a shower and a toilet that flushes(no more holes in the ground)! Heaven!

The next day we headed out after a lazy breakfast and followed by a lazier morning, to look around. The hotel is in downtown Manhattan near Ground Zero so we had a look over at the construction site. The next couple of days were spent seeing all the usual places you see in films and on TV: the Statue of Liberty on Liberty Island, Ellis Island, Broadway, Time Square (went to M & M's World - massive and with M & M's of every colour imaginable!), Central park (where I walked around in the rain with my soft pretzel), Madison Square Garden, Grand Central Station, NYC Public Library, The Chrysler Building and on the Friday (our last full day) we went up The Empire State Building!

It was a lot of queueing to get up the Empire State, then 80 floors up by elevator before walking the last 6 flights to the 86th floor observatory for spectacular views over New York City. Downtown Manhattan, Uptown, Liberty Island, Brooklyn, Macy's - It was all there!

I watched, along with the hundreds of other people cramped up there as the sun finally melted below the city's skyline to set on our last day of travelling. It was a weird moment for me, it was like saying goodbye to my travels already and I could feel a tear forming in the corner of my right eye. But the moment soon passed since it was really windy up there and got a lot cooler, fast. So I made a hasty retreat back inside to pick up a sweet little glittering snow dome with the Empire State seated inside at the souvenirs desk before making my way back down. It had been a gorgeous view though; from below the city may be hot, smoky, busy and dirty but from up above it's rather quite pretty. It was a good way to spend the last evening.

Mono Lake and Secoia Trees in Yosemite.

Some loons that night decided to camp outside in the snow, but I was quite happy to stay sleep snugly in the coach. The next day after a great breakfast with something called "Glop" we headed out to Mono Lake, in The Sierra now where we had camped the previous night. The Lake was really pretty. The sky was California Blue and that reflected on the lake. Also the lake is fed by three streams but only loses water through evaporation therefore the water is 2.5x saltier than the ocean and 100x more alkali. It means you can float really well in the water if you go swimming but if you do swim you will be surrounded by trillions of Brine Shrimp (look like Sea Monkeys) that live there. Also it was like 4 degrees outside so you can probably guess I didn't go swimming. Instead I looked very scientifically at the "Tufa's" which are calcified springs that build up out of the water.

That night was a huge dinner of soup, mashed potato and my favourite...Brocoli! Then we toasted marshmallows on the fire with chocolate (smores) and even cooked a banana on the fire (which was horrifically mushy). It was another night at the same camping grounds with the horrid toilets, no water, no mirrors, you had to wash your teeth carefully as any food or toothpaste could attract bears. And you're surrounded by dark trees and nothing else. It was proper camping and hard going. But in the day, the woods were pretty! On the last day (Monday) we headed out to do a nice walk in some meadows in the National park before going to see the giant Sequoia trees...the largest living things on the planet and very old too! They live to over 3000 years. There was an old one that had a giant tunnel dug into it which was really cool!

Yosemite National Park

Very little sleep, but in the National park never-the-less and so up and with a cooked breakfast and packed lunch as provided by the two tour guides Adrian and Seena, we headed out into Yosemite Valley. You could spend the day as you wished so we hopped on the parks' free shuttle and first stopped at the largest Graphite Monolith in the world: "El Capitan". To look at it, it just looks like a sheer white rock face that's pretty tall but it's 3000 feet tall and with good binoculars or a telescope that someone kindly let us use, you could see these tiny little people climbing it. The record is 3 hours but most people take 3-5 days to reach the top....all crazy. Next we walked down to the Valley Falls, all dried up at this time of year but still bloomin' tall (5Th highest waterfalls in the world or something like that).

Feeling a bit knackered by now, we headed up to the Vernal Falls. The sky was blue which was nice but it meant the sun blazed down without mercy. It was a really pretty walk up to the falls but bloomin' shattering too! We eventually made it to a "that'll do" place at the falls to stop and have lunch before heading back to the "Green Tortoise" Coach.

That evening we heard what other people did, most people only seemed to have done the vernal falls walk so no wonder we were knackered! For camp that night we headed out of the park and into a place called Hartley Springs where the snow from the previous night hadn't melted. At one point it looked bad when the coach couldn't grip on the snow but eventually we made it into camp safely. My only problem with the basically woods called a camping ground, was the toilets (or restrooms) which were dark ominous pits/holes in the ground in something no more than a shed. No lights, the smell was disgusting, plus the sheds were just out somewhere in the woods. It was horrible looking around in the dark for an old shack and then trying to find a way back to camp. Plus there were deer hunters camping around...they must be strange folk! Therefore I drank as little water as possible!

Goodbye San Francisco!

After Alcatraz, and nigh collapsing from walking all over the city, we decided to spend our last day in San Francisco by getting the Trams everywhere! That way travel in style. It was a mighty queue for the tickets but one hour and a McDonalds milkshake later we clutched our day passes in our hands and rode the tram uphill to Lombard Street; The most crooked street in the World. We hopped back on the tram and took it around the city before getting back to Pier 39 for some shopping and lunch. Then going back to the hostel to collect our bags and start walking to the bus terminal to catch the Green Tortoise sleeper coach for our Yosemite NP 4-day tour.

The tour started at 9pm that night, in which you all sleep during the four hour journey in the coach on bunks or on the platforms made up and then when you wake up you're in Yosemite National Park. It's a really nice idea....in theory. but I could not sleep in the sleeper coach because frankly sleeping horizontally on a bed in a moving coach is weird!

Alcatraz...A.K.A The Rock!

Looking out to the water in San Francisco Bay, there's a big ominous-looking rock with old buildings on it...also known as the infamous prison of Alcatraz. The Next day in San Francisco we took a boat out to the rock. It was really nice weather and there some kind of Navy air show going on which was good to watch on the 12 minute journey to the island.

What's great is that when you get to the Island they give you audio tour headphones to listen to the stories of Officers and ex-prisoners alike. So you all go around the place with headsets on, and the tour takes you to all the famous cell blocks, the dining hall, the gun gallery where there was an attempted escape and even showed you the cells belonging to the three prisoners that escaped up through the wall pipes and were never seen again...I think there's a film with Clint Eastwood about it. Not sure what it's called..."Escape from Alcatraz" or something. But it was a really interesting tour and day to behold on The Rock!

San Francisco, California!

Yes, we arrived in San Francisco in the dead of night, and had decided to be thrifty and save money by getting the BART train and walking the 6 or so blocks to the hostel. This would have been easier if (a) we hadn't had our 20KG backpacks and (b) San Francisco wasn't all hills! But nearly dead from exhaustion and looking slightly worse for wear we eventually made it to the hostel just before midnight! The dorm room....not too bad!

So we began our time in San Francisco the next day, walking. Walking the hundreds of blocks to Pier 39 to see the sea lions and fun stuff....such as visiting the "Bubba Gump Shrimp" restaurant where outside I met Forest Gump himself! While it wasn't Tom Hanks but a good impersonator. I was a bit weary as at first I'd taken him for just some random guy but when I realised he was paid to be there I thought what the heck, and so had my photo with him and had a chocolate from his box of chocolates!

Then we walked the hundreds of blocks to get a good view of the Golden Gate Bridge. It took some time with lots of buildings, then boats and even trees in the way but eventually I got a good photo. We then had to get back to the hostel which unfortunately was all uphill...boy was that a mighty walk up those streets. It was really tiring and I found myself mentally waving my fist at the cable car trams that passed us comfortably going up the hill I was practically dying on! What a stupid idea to build a city on hills! Completely knackering!

Big Island - Big Volcano!

With still some time left in Hawaii, we decided to organise flights over to one of the other Hawaiian islands. So we flew to Hawaii or Big Island as it's known, the most southern of the islands. There was one main reason to go here....the bloody great big active volcanoes! One in particular, Mauna Loa which is 29,000 feet from the ocean floor and at 19,000 cubic miles is the biggest, single volcanic structure on the planet so pretty cool! It's also "active" but the current lava flow was in a place off limits which was a shame as sometimes you get to see it flow, so the next day after we arrived in the town of Hilo on Big Island we headed off to the Volcanoes National Park aboard our little tour bus.

Soon we were well in the park and looking out across a massive crater, the "Kilauea Caldera" and other craters. They were absolutely massive, I had a hard time trying to fit them in the photos. You could see steam escaping from cracks in the ground in places as we drove by and when we got out to look at another crater (at the Kilauea Iki Overlook) soon enough we were coughing from the fumes in the air that turn slightly acidic in your lungs. We drove through lava flows from past eruptions and even saw where there used to be roads before the lava flows. The whole landscape was barren, with rocks, craters, mounds of the cracked black cooled lava that stretched out over the horizon...it was like the surface on the moon or something. Except that it was raining - darn volcano attracts a lot of cloud!

Our last stop of the day was to walk through the Thurston Lava Tube, made from magma sealed in by rocks that after time of being constantly kept hot, the outside hardens, then when the magma is released, a tube is left behind. It was a rainy trip but pretty good!

Waikiki Beach Life

After Pearl Harbour we spent the remainder of our time in Waikiki on the beach where it was bloody hot thought you'd occasionally get the odd sprinkle of rain out of what appeared to be blue sky! We staying in a grand hostel that has free breakfast and a TV in your room so we're getting well acquainted with US TV. The beach is great, it's like something out of Baywatch, I find myself singing the theme tune in my head whenever I look at the lifeguard hut thing. There's loads of surfer's here and the surf's pretty big so there always cool to watch!

We also saw the changing of the Kings Guard (in tradition with when they used to have royalty here). they take the state flag down (which has the union jack in the corner) and then do lots of displays of gun throwing and spinning of guns...its very cool and so we had our photo taken with the men in uniform!

Pearl Harbour.

With Pearl Harbour being so close to Waikiki we wanted to go see the USS Arizona memorial and the museum there. We set our real early as we had been told you get enormous queues but of course everyone has been told that so everyone goes early and that's when the queues are. We arrived - massive queue, later when we came out there was no queue!

It was well worth it though. Hearing about what happened that day December 7Th 1941 (a date drilled in thanks to the videos, leaflets and museum there...I have no hope of forgetting it). The USS Arizona was one of many battleships that were lined up on Battleship Row at Pearl Harbour that morning but unfortunately was one of those that suffered the worst of the onslaught and fatalities (1,177 crewmen died aboard the Arizona). We went out to the memorial (by boat) that is a white bridge thing over where the USS Arizona is still there underwater sunk. You can see the top of the funnel and some other parts sticking out of the water and there is still oil escaping from the fuel tanks that can be seen on the water which is crazy. The shrine room there had all the names and so I did that weird thing you do when look at a memorial plague and look for those with your surname - with a name like Williams you're always guaranteed at least one!

It was eerie with the boat being under your feet I guess, but nice too as it's a tomb for those who died and those that survived can have their ashes put down there later too. It was really thought-provoking and interesting stuff and we're glad we made the trip out there.

But Afterwards our heads were filled with so much information and so we headed to a diner called Denny's and I tried French Toast (another thing I always hear on US shows)...didn't like it much but it was OK.

When in Rome.....

Well, not in Rome but when in Hawaii you got to go to a Luau and so we did! We came back to Waikiki for about a week and so we hopped on to the coach for Germaine's Luau. On the coach we were the only Brits (very unusual) and were surrounded by Californians everywhere we turned. But eventually (lots of traffic) we arrived and had a great time! The Full moon was out and we all sat on our tables by the beach to watch the show.

The Hula dancing and all the island dancing (Tahiti, Samoa, Fijian and even New Zealand's Haka) they performed were great. Like the Maori meal (as it's all the same sort of culture across the islands) at the beginning of the evening they unveiled the Pig that had been cooking under rocks underground, before we sat down and helped ourselves to the feast. I had learnt my lesson at the Maori evening in New Zealand therefore I only had one medium-sized plate full which was OK. But they also served free soft drinks and three free cocktails. So I thought I'd best get to know the culture a bit and had a Hawaiian Mai Tai, followed by a Margarita and a Melon Ball. I also had a Root Beer as I always hear it on the U.S shows and thought I should try it but I didn't like it. It was a great evening though and we even got free shell Lei to go around your neck! Excellent.

Chilling at Northshore!

So we found ourselves amongst the mass of Americans in Waikiki! The place was gorgeous, the beach lovely but the whole city was a lot more built up than we were expecting (due to tourists). After a few days we left Waikiki for the free shuttle to north shore (well, technically they asked for a tip but then that wouldn't be free so we didn't tip!)

We stayed in a hostel that was situated as little huts in what they called a plantation village. The first day there it rained and we spent the day hopping to and from the beach in between cloud bursts. That night there was a BBQ (nice), later lots of us played cards when some guys (drunk) got into a fight up the road from us and the police were called. It didn't amount to anything, I think one guy got hit on the head with a plant. But as the police rolled up dressed in their cool uniforms and wearing guns, I thought to myself..."Yep I'm in America alright".

Our time In Northshore passed by with us being awoken in the wee hours each morning by the neighbourhood roosters, followed by beach by day and eating Frosties for dinner at night. Though one night we made "Mac N Cheese" that strangely had no cheese in the ingredients. The best thing about the Plantation village was all the chickens and all the cats! There were loads of them and some really friendly, I just used to grab one and put it on my lap. But they seemed to live along side the chickens in peace! That was sweet.

Leaving Fiji...Aloha Hawai'i!

Our last night in Fiji brought a last Fijian dance show with my favourite Fijian tunes, loads of flying-foxes and fruit bats by dusk and plenty more mosquito bites.

I spent the morning around the Lodge lazing by the pool and taking pictures of sweet tiny frogs (that on closer inspection later turned out to be baby ugly cane toads) and the raintree's very cute cat before it was time to get the coach back to Nadi. It was said leaving Fiji. I really hadn't known what to expect having not heard much about it beforehand but it turned out to be so pretty, with beautiful waters and tropical vegetation. The Fijians are so friendly and everything was very relaxing which was great! Also the geckos were sweet. I wouldn't miss the Mozzies though. So the sunset on our time in Fiji and soon we were at the airport waiting for our flight to Honolulu. We later found out that it was the Fijian water (rainwater and tank) we had been drinking and had been told it was safe to drink, that had probably made us feel yuck after the island hop and still a little for the rest of our time in Fiji, but now in Hawaii, it's back on the mineral stuff!

My first impression of Hawaii...a lot of Americans in Hawaiian shirts!

Life in the Rainforest!

After 4 days at the Beach House it was time to move on to Suva (the Capital). We decided to stay at this place we'd heard about called Raintree Lodge.

We got there and boy was it humid! We were staying in a bunk room but soon found it was very quiet at the Lodge. Beside a 110 feet deep murky lake (which has a friendly Eel and you can go swimming in but like hell was I going to) and next to the Colo-I-Suva Rainforest, we soon found out what this all meant...Mozzies. Yes The Mosquito had became my enemy back in Cape Tribulation in Australia and though we'd been united a little on the islands after sunset that was soon to be no comparison. In one night I got 40 bites across my legs. Now it may have partially my fault for not being on an adequate enough of insect repellent but it's also their fault for existing!
Each night I acquired more and more bites that became huge red itchy blotches that everybody tells you not to scratch but find yourself doing it in your sleep. It rained for the first two days at Raintree so we decided to take a trip in to Suva (did some more haggling) and then it got sunnier and so we took a trip into the rainforest next day...very humid, lots of spider webs but nice waterfalls! In the evenings we chatted with an old lady called Helena a Kiwi who lives on one of the very remote islands: Vanua Balava (near both of Arnold Swartzenegger's and Mel Gibson's Islands) and a couple of some pagan hippies that were really nice and who were going off to work for Helena.

Coral Coast: The Beach House

OK, so the sun burn actually made us both a bit sick, we had intended to stay only one night at the hotel but that was soon extended to recover. The extra time allowed us to get ourselves sorted and book up the next hostels and transport. We paid deposits which was a nice way to get around the 3% tax (only paying tax on deposits was much less....mmmwhahahahaha!!!)

It was on to the Coral Coast and we arrived at the pretty, out-of-the-middle-of-nowhere hostel called the Beach House where Last Year's Celebrity Love Island was filmed. I hadn't seen it but from "thanks for voting for me" messages left on the walls in the sitting area (that was the bedroom on the programme) and all the rectangular one-way-mirror-type windows everywhere, I got the idea.

The Beach house was another lovely place to lay in a hammock (I was starting to get permanent imprints from laying the hammock string) and also to have a swing on their very cool giant swing from a palm tree! I also did some very practical coconut jewellery-making and I had a nice horse trek on the beach on a sweet but incredibly sprightly horse called Lola, plus there was free afternoon tea daily with scones! Lovely!

So we had a good time at the Beach House, I watched some palm leave weaving (a pretty impressive Grasshopper) and failed miserably with my own attempt. We even popped into a market in Sigatoka where I had to learn how to Haggle which I am crap at! So I instead formed an anxious-looking-undecided face and that seemed to do the trick OK.

Kuata and Swimming with Sharks

Our last Island hop brought us to the small island of Kuata, where I spent more time lying in hammock and finished the 622 page book that I brought with me at the beginning of the island hop! The next morning I was sharply awoken by some birds in our dorm-hut-thing, they looked a bit like crows but sounded like dinosaurs which is why I was sharply awoken! I spent another day relaxing and watching crabs on the beach dig holes in the sand. It was time for another Bula dance after which we got talking to some guys who went on an snorkeling trip and snorkeled and swam with sharks. We thought this sounded so cool so the next day after waking up at 5.30am to watch the sunrise (very pretty) we set off on the boat trip, snorkel and flippers in hand!

The boat trip out was long, and Kuata got smaller and smaller into the distance. Eventually the boat stopped just in the middle of the ocean and the driver said, "OK, jump out!" I was mildly nervous, as jumping out into to the water where there's no hope of touching the bottom makes me a bit nervous and then with the added choppy water conditions I was a bit freaked. But I did it and after a mild panic I got the hang of the snorkel and off we went. The reef was gorgeous, the best I've seen and so so deep and blue. There was great crevices under us and so many fish, I even saw a trumpet fish! Then we saw the sharks, "White-Tip Sharks": 5ft in length but rather cute and not dangerous (only if you anger them or they're hungry, but these guys were about to be fed by our guide so no worries there - We heard afterwards of two guys being bitten by White Tips but they had had fish tied around they're waists so they were idiots!). They were amazing creatures and it was a fantastic experience being with them.

There was a panic when getting back into the boat I nearly lost my necklace and then another panic when we got back on shore and realised our bags were missing. They'd been put on the boat in the morning but when we learnt we would be reunited with them at 4pm it was OK, that just left time to laze in the sun and get dry then burnt (forgot no sunscreen). So we got back on the Yasawa Flyer (a bit red) and were soon back on main land Viti Levu. We said goodbye to the Japanese girls we'd been travelling around the islands with and other people we met and headed back to Nadi Bay Hotel for a nice shower and to watch a very cool Fijian dance and fire show.