Peter and Vicki's Travel Blog: Good to be back in a place we love!!!!

Day 1 Fri 16/09/2011 and Day 2 Sat 17/09/2011 Hawaii

It’s great to be back in Hawaii! Always feels good!

We left Nadi Airport, and beautiful Fiji at 9pm Friday 16th September and winged our way eastwardly into the night. Two hours into our journey we landed in Apia, Samoa to unload passengers, pick up some others also heading for Hawaii and most importantly - to refuel. Time? - 11pm Thursday 15th ! We’d crossed the International dateline just after we left Fiji - that part of the world sees the new day first!

Hello Samoa! We'll return for a longer stay in the future!

After our golf and gym and a very relaxing afternoon day in Fiji we thought we would sleep well on the flight to Hawaii, but 7am Friday 16th September saw us tiredly clambering off our flight to a magnificent day in Honolulu but with no sleep!!! We rallied and headed off to the domestic terminal, excited Kona was only a 40 min flight away! It was a great flight with

Waikiki, Diamond Head, Molokai and Maui greeting us as we headed for Kona and its black lava carpeting the surrounds of the airport.

Amazing cloud formations

Great wall mural in Honolulu Airport

The Big Island - This is where we are headed - Yeah!!

Kailua- Kona and coast - our beautiful home for the next month

Flying out of Honolula for Kona
Landmark Diamond Head

Waikiki
Wow! Look at the colour of that water!

Impressive Diamond Head crater

Marine park Hanauma Bay, Ohau

Molokai

Maui with volcano Haleakala making its presence felt!

Maui

Landing at Kona Airport amongst its trademark black lava!
We know we have arrived!!!

A blast of humidity hit us as we stepped onto the tarmac and we knew we were in Kona! We were greeted with the waft of Hawaiian hula music in the air and once we were in the open air terminal we were treated to some hula dancing - those girls can move their hips!!!

Kona airport with volcano Hulalai watching over

Aloha!

We picked up our hire car (book through Rhino when you need a hire car - great deals!!!! )

and enjoyed all the familiar sights, sounds and smells as we headed to Luke and Amanda’s Condo at Alii Cove to say hello - we hadn’t seen them since IM Texas in May! After a quick catch up, including Linsey Corbin who is staying at the Condo as well, we headed to our home for the next month to settle in and get ourselves organized to enjoy Kona and the Big Island. We stocked up the pantry and fridge from Safeway’s (love American supermarkets!) and then headed back to Luke, Amanda and Linsey’s Condo for a BBQ. A tropical deluge hit while Pete and Luke were cooking the meat but the drowned steak and chicken was delicious! So was master-chef Amanda’s salad! An early night was on the agenda for all as everyone had had a very busy day either traveling or training! Was great to see them all agin! and looking so well and fit!!!

Today, Saturday 17th September, was another perfect Hawaiian day! We had a lazy morning and caught up on our sleep having had none the evening before! Housekeeping was the word of the day for a few hours while we did a clothes wash, unpacked and made ourselves at home! Discovered we have a a lineup of morning visitors in the back courtyard. A cat, 2 pigeons and a mongoose all strolled in to drink water from a bowl that was in the yard. Will have to have the camera ready tomorrow to snap the parade!

Happy hour and watching the sunset was the afternoon agenda at the Alii Cove Condo. Got to taste Amanda’s fantastic gluten free banana bread which we had been hearing about - and it was delicious - melts in your mouth! The red wine was very nice too! The great bonus of the afternoon was getting to talk to Betty and Dana - Linsey's mum and sister on Skype, and see gorgeous baby Orly contentedly and happily smiling in mum and grandma's arms! She's a delight and growing so quickly! I think she is going to get very spoilt by Aunty Linsey!!!!

Happy hour at Alii Cove Condo
Pete enjoying a Longboard! So much for his resolve to have an
alcohol free month! - think it is impossible while on hols here!!!