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Hello everyone! Sorry its been a couple of weeks since we left and this is the first blog, but i'll give you a quick run-down of what we've been up to. We landed in Aukland this morning, and we're just sorting out our Kiwi Experience which is going to take us all over both islands. But as for the last 2 weeks, I'll try to keep it brief!
1st stop was San Francisco, and we'd only been there for about an hour before Emma conveniently led us into a Macy's. We were there for 3 days in all, and packed a fair amount of stuff in, but it was so cold we couldn't believe we were in California. We hired bikes and cycled over the Golden Gate. The weather was beautiful all morning, but it decided to rain on us about half way across the bridge and we got soaked. Just the other side is a little town called Sausilito. We loved it there, lots of houses with jetties onto the bay with amazing views back across at San Fran. After our epic 9 mile ride we got the ferry to Alcatraz which was also pretty awesome. We also went on a 'bus with no lid' tour of the city, and had lots of pancakes for breakfast.
On our 3rd day we picked up our hire car and started on the road to Monterey, which is about 3 1/2 hours down the amazing coast, and is a lovely little fishing town. We went to the acquarium and got to see some penguins and sea otters, and also some sharks. Exciting stuff. The next day we carried on down route 1, did the spectacular 17-mile drive from Monterey to Carmel, stopped at pebble beach golf course which was just amazing, then carriend on driving down the big sur. Its an amazing drive, the coastline is just spectacular. We even saw a load of elephant seals just sunbathing on a beach. Further down we went through this little town called Solvang which is probably the weirdest town in existence. If Disney had a Denmark-land, it would look like Solvang. Its even got windmills. So so strange. We then ploughed on, through Santa Barbara and stayed in Ventura, and the next day we drove to VEGAS BABY!!!!
Vegas is so big. It took us 2 whole days to work our way down the strip. Everything is just so huge. On our second night we went to watch Love, the Cirque du Soleil show set to The Beatles music, and I think we both agreed that that was by far the highlight of Vegas. On our last full day we went on a bus tour to the Grand Canyon. We went to the West Rim, which is owned by a bunch of red indians (or native americans) called the Hualapai tribe, and it was amazing. It really is huge, and we went over the Hoover dam on the way which really is the most impressive piece of concrete i've ever seen. We did have a little dabble on the blackjack tables, and came out only $10 down which i think was a lot less than some of the characters we saw on the slot machines.
After Vegas we flew back to LA and had 3 nights in Santa Monica, which really is what you think of when you think California. Amazing beaches and lots of sun. We went up to Hollywood and Beverly Hills (where we saw a Bugatti!) , had a nose at UCLA, and fed Emma's new-found love of cycling by biking down the coast along the beaches and around a marina packed full of nice yachts. We went up to malibu and saw some surfers, but the most adverturous thing I could manage was to get a spiderman kite flying, which didn't do much for my street cred in front of the surfers, but it was fun nonetheless.
Anyway as i don't want to bore you too much I'll leave it at that for now, we're going to try and upload some pics in a minute too, and hopefully will get the chance to do another update soon. Hope everyone's well!
- comments
Sam H You was in Macy's for three days?! Sounds like your having a quality time mate, looking forward to seeing the pictures Sam
The Wrinklies Great time so far then! But, where are the photos?? Little sis came to rescue with a tip off that the photos were on Facebook. Love them all apart from the ones where you are both way too close to the edge of the Canyon! xx
Jill and Bob Wow - amazing. Can't believe you've packed in so much already! It's made me think back to my own trip to San Francisco when I was 20 ish. The boys have banned me from facebook so will have to get your mum to show me the photos! Take care xx
Janet Tyler love the pics wish i was there. Take care and be careful.