At just after 10am on 28th February, with bags packed & weighed, we set off for the airport to catch our midday flight to Kona on Hawaii big Island. Our cases were checked in with hardly a glance at the scales & we watched them being loaded onto the plane from the departure gate (the airport is very small!) Then, half an hour late, we were off; a smooth flight lasting 35 minutes. Kona airport is very small & almost completely open air - they obvious...

Writing this blog has proved much more difficult than I thought it would, simply because of the vagaries of the wifi signal in the different places we've been staying. Whenever I manage to write something the signal fails just as I press 'enter' & everything disappears into the ether! Anyway, although there's not much to see on here, we have been having the most amazing experience! We are so lucky to have seen so many of the astounding sights in this wonder...

.It was still dark when we fell out of bed at 6am so that we could catch the bus to Pearl Harbour in time to get a free ticket to the Arizona memorial. The bus seemed to take a very circuitous route, but we eventually arrived & we were each given a ticket for the 9.30am boat across to the memorial. This gave us time to have a look at all the information & exhibits. The area is very well cared for & security is very tight. We weren't allowed to take ou...

As we were so tired after the flight etc we thought we'd like an easy day - ha!! We found the stop for the No 2 bus & used our 4 day bus pass (bought in the ABC store last night) & set off for Diamond Head crater. The bus stopped at the bottom of the hill that we had to climb to get to the entrance. We then walked through a tunnel which cuts under the rim of the crater & emerged in the middle of it, surrounded by an enormous hill. From there we took t...

Well, it's farewell to New Zealand, & 'Aloha' to Hawaii. Heaven knows how we managed to get there - when we tried to check in online we were instructed to ' go to book in desk' which was impossible as there aren't any in Auckland airport, everything is automated! Fortunately we found a helpful staff member who told us that the problem was that we had new passports! (We'd had to renew our passports because we had only 6 months left before they expired) We eve...