9/12/12 - Book him Danno.....

Hi All

Finally finished packing our flat in the BH and we are now gone. Great memories and our lives changed forever.

It was great to have the boys (and Lizzie) take us to the airport and have breakfast with us before we left home for 7 months.

So here it is, our first post since landing on US soil. We're lucky to be here as we were delayed on the tarmac with no a/c for 1.5 hours waitng for a reverse thruster to be repaired before we could take off. Nearly missed the connection in Sydney but we managed to reinact scenes from 'The Amazing Race' to make the gate in time.

Our plane to Hawaii was a 42 year old Boeing 767. Our in flight entertainment was on the walls or in the roof and it was sort of like going back to 'Fantasy Island' - "Boss the plane, the plane....." and now we're here..... amazingly relaxing place but also set back in time - it is like Surfers' Paradise in the 1970s. Peter keeps looking around for the meter maids!

The Japanese tourists are everywhere - no surprise really as the Honalulu Marathon was on today and of the 32,000 participants, 16,000 were from Japan - guess it is one of their cultural badges of honour - I hope it was worth it as there were a lot of tired old people limping around today !! Peter was in his element - Ha Ha!

We had a snooze upon arriving and then went for a long walk along the beachfront of Waikiki Beach (see photos taken from our hotel balcony). Now we are going out for dinner and then, we hope an early night and a good night's sleep. See you all tomorrow!