Sunrise at Diamond Head Lookout

Well today has been a looooooong day already.

One of the girls staying at the hostel had the idea of walking up to Diamond Head lookout in the morning to catch the sunset. Seemed like a pretty good idea, apparently it's the best view in Waikiki and sunrise is alway beautiful (although more then often seen on the way home to be rather then just out of bed).

I aimed to get an early night for the 3.40am start and apologised in advance to my room mates. Laura, one of the girls that is in the room, thought that the idea sounded pretty good and was in for it as well, however on reflection of the Lonely Planet guide it seemed that we needed sturdy hiking boots to make the 1.6 mile round trip.

Fortunately Laura had just spent 6 months in Australia with her other half and is well versed in the use of thongs. How hard could the climb be?

So at 3.40am we got up, put our hiking thongs on and went down stairs to meet Emily and wait for the taxi. We got there a shade after 4am to find a 12 foot locked gate and a sign for a 6am open.

About 5 seconds later Laura had squeezed through the gap in the fence, which fortunately big enough for my fat ass and over sized head (or so I'm told).

35 minutes later, after walking over the semi rough terrain in our thongs and over came the 100+ steps we were on top of the lookout with some amazing sites.

We got some good shots, but the camera didn't do justice to just how beautiful the scenary
was at that time of the morning.

After a couple of snaps, poses and some polaroid pictures we took joy in slowly wandering down the hill as we passed 30-40 people making the journey up in the heat of the morning.

From there, hungry as hell, we headed back to the hostel for a quick shower before walking past the breakfast house twice trying to find it (not good seeing as our stomachs had started to digest themselves).

Emily headed off for the North Shore, and Laura and I took the 1 hour 20 minute bus ride out to Pearl Harbour to do the tour.

It's now a little past 13 hours since I woke up, and it's still sunlight! I'm off to surf the easy waves of Waikiki to wake myself up.

Tonight it's off to a few pubs to have a few beers with Laura before she heads off tomorrow, there's a place here called the Yard House that has 129 tap beers served in either 6 midi glasses (tasting plate), Pints, or............... wait for it.............. half yard glasses!

Hopefully it'll only be one beer there...... one big beer!

Hawaii Memorial Day

Today was a public holiday in Hawaii so it was off to the park for a cook up with Myles and his mates.

It pretty much reminded me of a day down at Lake Alexander, lots of food on the bbq and beers.........

All of the guys I met were awesome, but there's more stories to follow.

Here's a couple of pictures to tide you over.

Pictures from facebook

Surfing Mecca - The North Shore

I just got back from the North Shore and I must say it lived up to expectations.

More on that later, but here's a couple of pics I got. The waves weren't all that great, but hey, it was the North Shore.

For a look at all the photo's head over to facebook

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=24610&l=bed20&id=676270374

Myles Local Break

I just got back from my second surf with Myles out at his local break near Ala Moana Park.

Nice and small, just the way I like it, although it's pretty shallow and both of us are sporting cuts from a few tumbles.

One of my tumbles was actually getting into the water. You have to jump off some pretty slippery rocks when the swell comes up, timing is everything and I had none of it.

Anyway, here's a couple pictures. We're about to head to Dukes and wash the salt water down with a few quiet beers.

Laptops and Travel

Are you serious!!!!

Not counting my room mates, there are 4 laptops down here now. Mine, Mac, side burn dude, black mac book, arm tattoo girl, mac, loud boardshort dude, Vaio.

Things have changed.

At least I'm drinking beer!

Surfing Waikiki

Just finished my first surf, and yes, I'm the most unfit S.O.B known to man. Well perhaps with the exception of Paul Sac, his guns may be huge but his legs are soooo cute and spindly.

Sorry Sac.

Waves were small, water was warm, and the beach lauched itself from sand into the Diamond Head creator off to the right. Beautiful scenery, I'll post some photo's up soon.

Anyway, it's about a 300m paddle out to the line up, and then a long wait. By the time I got out there I was ready to die, I think a mixture of not surfing, only having eaten breakfast today, jet lag, being unfit and the fact that I'm as soft as a babies bottom has something to do with it.

Intersting trend I've noticed though, of the 3 people staying in my dorm 3 of us have laptops, 2 with mac's, and while I'm sitting here typing this surfing someone else's internet connection for nothing, another guy has turned up with a black mac the same as mine.

Is the world of backpacking moving into the computer age? You have to wonder...... with things like couchsurfing and the like it's now become a requirement to have the internet available when traveling.

Things have obviously changed over the years. Elise traveled with nothing more then a few clothes, Dad thinks that checking email every 90 days is a hassle, where as I travel with a laptop and feel the need to check email every 9 hours.

I'm sure these things will change as I travel on, I think I must still be getting out of work mode.

When in Rome........... drink Budweiser

The Flight Over

Well the trip went well.

I sat next to Kale (Michaela) who is a very shy girl........ apparently. We chatted for most of the flight, she's off to work at a Summer Camp in the states, sounds like fun.
Everything went pretty well, got a fair bit of sleep on the plane and it was pretty smooth. The only down side was we didn't have individual tv's in the back of the seats, instead a freaking cinema screen with movies like "Becoming Jane".

Like I said, I got a fair bit of sleep on the plane.

Coming into Hawaii was beautiful, although i was a bit bummed about the amount of cloud around, but that's cleared up now to a beautiful day.

I've headed around Waikiki, gone for a swim, got a mobile number (email me if you want it, I gave Kylie a quick call so she's got it too), got sunscreen and am coming to grips with this money, bloody coins all look alike ;)


Here's a quick snap shot of waikiki beach, better pictures to come.......
Oh, and I got word from Myles my Hawaiian buddy that a 20ft swell is hitting the island. Time to get the camera out for some epic surf footage.

Leaving Australia

I'm sitting down a dingy corridor at the sydney airport..... it's the only place I could find with a power point to charge the laptop.

I've made all the relevant phone calls, now I'm just waiting a while before I have to clear customs and head off on the plane.

So far I've been pretty lucky, a lot of people on the http://www.couchsurfing.com site have helped me out with suggestions, both saying good and bad things about the trip through central america.

I've got a guy coming to the airport to pick me up in San Francisco, how cool is that?!?

I had some problems getting on in Brisbane. Apparently you can only check 2 bags in on flights to america, so I had to choose between the boards, guitar or the back pack, or pay an extra $120.

Anyone care to guess what I left behind? Or if I paid the money?


Picture from the front of Sydney International Airport


Well it ended up being neither. It turns out that I could take the guitar and my day bag on as hand luggage.... hooray for saving $120.00

Anyway, it's time to board the plan, I wonder if I'll get the seat to myself?


View from Observation Deck in Sydney

Pipe and a Pikelet

I love bakery's, but I'm not too sure how many of them do pikelets. Or pipes for that matter. It just seemed a better title then a bong and a crepe.

It's the one thing that I hope will stay the say throughout my worldly travels.

I don't care if it's a crappy bakery, but as long as they have sausage rolls and pies I'll be happy. If they decide that they want to expand, GREAT, I'm all for that. Include jam filled donuts, and donuts with jam and cream, and don't forget the vanilla slice (or snot boxes as bianca likes to call them).

A really good bakery will do a sandwich as well (yes Kara, I still can't say it). Something that you can buy in the morning, eat half of, and finish off after a day at the blues and roots festival.

Of course finally, the bakery needs to have something there to wash down the food. I think that is where I'm going to struggle the most in the travels, the daily bottle/s of diet coke.

Maybe I could put in for sponsorship with the coke.com, although traveling through Central America touting that I'm sponsored by “coke” may not be the best idea. Coca-Cola seems to be a safer word to use during the trip.

You could see the advert now. “Nothing washes away the memories of being held at gunpoint by drug runners like a Diet Coke........ ahhhhhhhh, taste the freedom”.


Anyway, I've finished the sausage roll and there's a mouthful of dc to go, time to hit the road and finish the preparations before I leave the country tomorrow.

Get a digital camera, finalise banking details, hand out itineraries, pack and repack till I've got something I can carry.

1 Year. Seems a long time, but I have no doubt what-so-ever that it will absolutely fly by.

beginning the trip

The week leading up to the trip has been that of a roller coaster....... not much time left on the internet so here's a basic run down of things so far, i'll update it with more time.

Saturday farewell and out until the wee hours with Baylis
Sunday farewell very sick and throwing up for the first time in a long time.
Sunday elbowed in the nose while at the cav, Kanos came down a few beers by all, double mixtures bombay mojitos, watching the soccer with deep at shags and the hammers getting up, telling josh no playing on stage that night, instead do it on tuesday night.

Tuesday cacelled the quiz, went in to sing. Mat and Tash singing, organise more singing later on (we went down to the arc bar).

Wednesday last day at work, drinks after work. Thursday get ready for the trip plus a huge practice session down at the cav with tash. arguments over scones and scones, and chocolate brownies.
Played on thursday night and deep, kwhy and baylis turn up again.

Friday night few quiet beers, forget to say bye to baylis, staying up all night with another girl I met talking about things and getting to know each other a little better.

Lose the keys, great dramams, breakky, fly out, no contact from lizzy, but then comes to the rescue anna, katie and lexi. Great two days. catch up with emma and talk for hours. Miss her heaps, she looks absolutely fantastic.

anyway, here's so pictures to sum up because I can't recall everything.

HV20

After winning the draw on Friday night I've decided to invest the money into something that just keeps on giving.

No no, not beer, but a Canon HV20 HDV camera.

I'll post up some of the footage soon.