Let the Real Adventures Begin – On to Airlie Beach

View from our Airlie Beach Home!

Today we left our hotel in Brisbane around 9am after an early morning walk downtown to fetch us some coffee and pastry.  (I think we’re already beginning to talk a bit like Aussies – ya’ know what I mean mate?)

We then hopped the AirTrain to the airport and then got our 1 hour flight to MacKay (pronounced mic-eye) where we were set to pick up our car (right hand drive of course).  Turned out that our car was not only right hand steering, but it was left hand shifting as well.  I tried to find an automatic, but that would have required another $300, so off we go – shifting our way through Australia.

And the drive wasn’t easy at first.  (actually it still isn’t)  It already takes a bit of adjusting to driving on the left side of the street, but with of course the unfamiliar territory and now having to shift with my left hand – a bit of nervousness ensued.

Surfing the Web - with a View!

After about 2 or 3 miles, we decided to pull over and take a breath – and while we were at it – we pulled over at a Fish & Chips place.  Figured I’d get a light snack and something to drink for the 2 hour drive to Airlie Beach.  Turns out that the Australian stereotype, of things being larger here, is starting to seem true.  You wouldn’t believe the size of the order they gave me.  The fish was a good size but the chips (fries) was huge.  And then she wrapped it all in butcher paper and when she handed it to me, it seemed it was about 18” long and 10” wide.  It was hilarious walking out of there with that “snack”.  Ended up only eating some of the fries before heading back out on the road.

The rest of the drive wasn’t really fun – just wasn’t very relaxing at all.  A two lane highway with people wanting to pass me somewhat frequently.  But the scenery was gorgeous – with sugar cane fields surrounded by hills full of trees, both familiar and new!   As we finally approached Airlie Beach we stopped at a grocery store to pick up some supplies (and some “needed” beer and wine) for our stay here.  By the way, the prices at the store weren’t bad – but the restaurant prices here in Australia – outrageous!  At a casual restaurant (nothing fancy and not fast food) you’d find hamburgers for $12 to $16; a small pizza for $19, and a fish entrée – starting around $29.  And a muffin at a coffee shop – about $4.50.  Just amazing.

There are loads of these beautiful squawkers

Anyway, our GPS led us to our Airlie Beach apartment, and it is gorgeous!  The town, the apartment and the view – all fantastic!  The color of the ocean water is beautiful - different color shades of blue.  Doesn't get much prettier.  After unpacking a bit we headed down to the pool (where we can pick up the internet) and hung out there – enjoying a Guinness Stout, surfing the web and enjoying the view – and the wild parrot that stopped by for a drink.  Very nice place to hang out.

For dinner, we decided not to go into town and Joanie magically reconstituted the Fish and Chips, with a bit of salad and some dressing that she whipped up from seemingly nothing – and we had a nice dinner in our apartment.  We watched a DVD and then hit the sack – and comfortable sack it was.

A nerve wracking drive to a very beautiful and relaxing beach town.  Tomorrow we have no plans – other than to explore the area and hang out and relax.  Probably not a better place around to do just that. 

On to Australia - First Stop Brisbane

Downtown Brissie from the South Bank

This morning we left our very nice Fijian hotel and took the 1 minute shuttle ride to the airport.  After checking in, we had a quick and light breakfast at the airport, and then boarded our 4 hour flight to Brisbane.  Upon our arrival, we took the AirTrain, which was right there at the airport, directly to our hotel.  It was a 20 minute ride and it did literally drop us of right at our hotel.

Bougainvilla laced walkway - South Bank

After checking in, we walked around Brisbane, for about 2 hours.  First we walked through downtown, and their Queen Street Mall (nothing much) but then we walked over the pedestrian bridge, over the river, to the South Bank area.  It actually turned out to be really nice.  There was a main street with lots of restaurants (we ate at a Chinese restaurant) and then we discovered a second street with a craft market going on.  And then we discovered their beach park right next to the river.  It was really a very cool place – where they constructed these huge “pools” that looked like ocean coves, with sand, etc.  A great playground for young and old.  And next to these beaches there was a children’s water play area which was also done really well.  A great public gathering spot to play and relax.

Beach/Pools along the South Bank

On our walk home along the river’s South Bank, we came upon this rain forest that was being preserved.  Also, there was a lot of plant life that Joanie just loved seeing.  It’s Spring here, and it looked a lot like Southern California, with bougainvillea, jasmine, agapanthus and jacaranda everywhere.   Our walk began under overcast skies, and somewhat hot and humid, but the clouds parted and the sun got a lot warmer.  By the time we got back to our hotel room, we showered and collapsed for the rest of the afternoon.

Old & New in Downtown Brisbane

When the sun started to go down, we went out to dinner to a place called The Groove Train.  Very cool atmosphere in that it was outdoors (perfect temperature now) in a big square right in front of the old City Hall, which they are currently restoring.  Had a pizza and Greek salad (can’t get over our Europe trip yet I guess!).  Also had a couple of glasses of Australian wine, which was also very nice.  The funny thing that happened was that we actually heard them play a Men at Work song.  Of course there was a lot of American and English music being played, but it was kind of funny to hear some “ancient” Australian music still being played there.  Are they really still that proud of that album?  J

Time Traveling

View of the Samoan Coast from the Plane's Stairway

We woke up this morning, Friday October 28^th and now, about 16 hours later, we’re going to bed on Saturday, October 29^th.  Time sure does fly when you’re flying across the International Date Line.   Yup, spent most of the day getting from one amazing island to another.  Left Honolulu at 8am, landed in Samoa – which was beautiful from the air and also from the plane on the ground.  (We had a layover of an hour but couldn’t leave the plane, but the flight attendants let us go out on the exterior stairs.) 



After another two hour flight we landed in Fiji, and walked from the airport to our hotel (about 3 minutes) and hung out by the pool and bar for the last couple of hours of daylight.  The hotel is really nice, and our room is very cool.  It’s decorated in a sort of Polynesian / Asian contemporary style.  Too bad we’re here only one night, but after all, Fiji was an unplanned stop – just a layover on our flight itinerary.

The Airport Terminal in Samoa

Just got done eating at the hotel’s restaurant and it too was great!  (We are really having some good luck with food so far!!)  Tonight we had Indian food – Dahl soup with spicy chicken curry – all great.

Our Fijian Bedroom from the Living Room

Watching a movie on the laptop tonight and getting up early again for our 4 hour flight to Brisbane, Australia.  We are excited!   

On to Honolulu

Byodo Temple near Kaneohe

Today we packed up early and hit the road, along the north shore, to Kanehoe, to meet Brooke.  The ride down was very pretty, although it was fairly cloudy so it wasn’t a picture postcard type of day.  We did stop at the Byodo Temple – a Buddhist Temple modeled after a 950 year old temple in Japan.  It was very beautiful, and a gorgeous setting.

We then met Brooke at a restaurant in Kailua and had a very nice visit with her.  She’s doing well as a Marine’s wife.  We then drove to our hotel in Waikiki, checked in and then headed out for a walk.  The weather was still cloudy, and it started to rain a bit so we cut our walk short and ate at a little bar and grill right on the beach.  Joanie had something delicious – edamame hummus – which was served with some pickled ginger.  It was really good. 

Joanie & Brooke

We then went back to the hotel, packed up everything for our early (5:30am) drive to the airport and went to bed early.   Nothing too special today – but there’s nothing ever wrong with an easy paced day.

Lei’d Back Day in Haleiwa

Breakfast on the deck at Kono's

Well we made a change to our plans.  Since we were able to get a good place to charge the car at our condo, we decided to just hang out in Haleiwa today while the car charged to 100%.   This morning we walked into town and had breakfast at Kono’s… another good meal in Haleiwa.  I had their green eggs and ham – a macadamia pesto, eggs, provolone and tomato breakfast sandwich, and Joanie had a fresh papaya. 

The rest of the day was uneventful – which was good – since we have some busy days coming up.  Hung out in the condo – had a picnic lunch on the grass  by the beach and not much more. 

Tonight we are going back to Haleiwa Thai since it was so good last time.  Should be another very tasty meal.  Tomorrow we head around the northern most tip of the island and down the east coast to Kaneohe to see Brooke Beitner – then onto Honolulu.  More about all this tomorrow.

There were lots of these amazing trees all over Oahu

First Day in Haleiwa

Morning Walk

We took it pretty easy today.  We took a very nice Morning walk on our beach, finally got the internet to work in our condo and then decided to take a drive and explore the North Shore.  We drove past famous surfing beaches, like Sunset, Waimea and the Banzai Pipeline.  We ended up near the northern most part of the island in the town of Kahuku – which is “famous” for its Shrimp Trucks, fresh from their local shrimp farms.  We pulled into one of these places – although the Kahuku Grill wasn’t a truck – and had their grilled fish and “garlic lovers shrimp” – which was tasty.  As we ate, we plugged the Leaf into an outlet at a small little Kaiser clinic next store – with their permission of course.

Lunch in Kahluku

On the way back we stopped in at a few of the beaches we  passed on the way out, just to check it out and take a few photos.  We weren’t going to “beach it” today – just explore.  Stopped at a market for a few more items and a Starbucks, and drove back into Haleiwa to check out the town a bit more… and found tonight’s dinner location – Cholo’s Homestyle Mexican.

The rest of the afternoon was spent relaxing a bit more.  We had some time to kill (gladly) since we finally found a plug in the condo complex that would work for a few hours.  So we just whiled away a few hours at the condo.  And got a charge good enough to get back to Honolulu tomorrow to exchange the Leaf for a gas car – so we can drive around the entire island tomorrow.  (We could have made the trip with the Leaf, but not without the ability to charge the car overnight.)

So, Cholo’s turned out to be really good!   They had good tequila, good Margaritas and Joanie ordered this Chile Verde and I had the Ahi tacos – both great.  A delicious ending to an easy going day.

Electric Car & Wind Turbine - The Future is Here!

North Shore Beach

Flying to Hawaii

Plugging in during a lunch break

Our flight to Hawaii was a nice one on Hawaiian Air, and it went by fairly fast.  When we went to get our rental car from Enterprise, we noticed they had the 100% electric Nissan Leafs – and it would only cost us $12 per day extra – and no need to buy gas… so we rented it.  It was fun!  Smooth, quiet acceleration and some high tech bells and whistles.

But our gamble didn’t pay off – we were hoping that there would be somewhere to plug in the car at our condo – and we are having no luck with that.  The car has a 100 mile range, and it took us about 30 miles to get to our condo.  So we can definitely get back to Honolulu, and more, with the original charge – but now that we have no plug – we are limited.  We are actually thinking of taking it back and exchanging it so the rest of our days here we can travel freely.  But the car is great – just wish we had a plug for overnight charging.

Turtle on the beach in front of our condo

The condo itself, although it has a pretty nice ocean view and balcony, is a little underwhelming, but we are certainly making do.  We took a late afternoon walk on the beach – which is very nice – and we came upon several sea turtles – just lounging on the beach.  It was very cool –they just sat there totally un-afraid of us. 

Sunset at "our" beach

After our walk we went into town for dinner and ate at Haleiwa Thai, and it was great!  A small little hip place.  I had Thai basil – hot and flavorful!!  Joanie had eggplant salad with a great, light dressing that she loved as well.  Nice find – we told the waitress we’ll be back.

Seattle – Sunday, October 23rd

Taken in front of a green screen.  Hard to tell huh?

Left Boise on time for the short flight to Seattle.  We were able to check into our hotel (Holiday Inn Express) by the airport early, which was very convenient.  We then were able to take the hotel’s shuttle to the airport station of Seattle’s new Light Rail system, and took the 30 minute ride into downtown Seattle.

Since the weather was cloudy and cool – we decided to go first to a matinee – which turned out to be a fairly nice movie called “The Way”.  After the film, we walked around downtown and made our way to the Space Needle – and decided to take the elevator to the observation deck.  The weather had improved by now to partly cloudy, so the views were nice, but unfortunately couldn’t see Mt. Rainier.

We then continued our downtown walk, back towards the Light Rail station and came upon an Asian restaurant called Wild Ginger – which gets great reviews.  We ordered summer rolls and a “singing fish” appetizer, and a sake to eat there, and I ordered some Kung Pao Chicken to take back to the hotel.  All very good.

We then finally made our way back to the light rail station and were back to the hotel before we knew it.  A nice relaxing day in Seattle.

Play Money!

Just picked up a little Australian and New Zealand currencies for the trip.  Fun, colorful money to play with!

Heading Down Under!

Here we go - onto the second part of our "Eating Dessert First" Tour!  Sunday we leave to spend one night in Seattle, and then off to Hawaii - our first stop.

Here is the general itinerary of our South Pacific trip.  And if you're reading this - we're happy to have you with us.  :-)