Travel Diary

After an uneventful check-in and dinner we spent about 40 frustrating minutes at the BNZ trying to sort out telephone banking for our credit card. Lucky for us we had lots of time to spare. Two security checks later we were ready to board, but the plane was delayed for about an hour due to […]

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Our ‘continental breakfast’ turned out to consist mainly of muffins and cakes, or porridge as a healthy option. Disneyland didn’t open until 10am – but we were in the queue by 9am. Unfortunately we lost our place as we didn’t realize that the front gates opened at 9.30, and I decided to take a quick […]

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Space Mountain
A short indoor (dark) roller coaster with lots of flashing lights and stars. Quite thrilling but not really adrenaline inducing enough for Brendan.
Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters
Based on Toy Story – very interactive, you use your own laser gun to shoot at targets for points, and joy stick turns the car around. Fun! Did this […]

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We were going to try to get to Universal Studios via the cheapest option of bus/subway, so we got up early and left at 7.00 to get to the bus stop by 7.30. The only problem was we couldn’t find the bus stop anywhere – Anaheim resort is much better geared to rich tourists than […]

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The Mummy
An indoor roller coaster similar to Space Mountain, however unlike Space Mountain it actually impressed Brendan with its fast acceleration and g-forces. Just when we thought we were going to crash head on into a stone wall, we stopped short, and the whole thing was repeated in reverse. We enjoyed it so much that […]

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By 9am we were packed up and ready to pick up the car, so we ran (I ran anyway, Brendan ran and walked) down to the Hertz office. Picking up the car took about 5 minutes, then I ran and Brendan drove back to the motel to pick our bags up. We headed on to […]

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We got to Hearst Castle nice and early, so we got on to a tour just about straight away. Hearst Castle is not really a castle at all but a palatial house (and three guest houses) built by William Hearst (a wealthy publishing tycoon and businessman) in the first half of the 20th century. The […]

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First thing in the morning we hired a double sit-on-top kayak to take out into Monterey Bay. This is a marine reserve area, with a huge kelp forest, so it attracts lots of wildlife like seals, pelicans and otters. They seemed very used to kayakers, so we got an up-close look at them. After this, […]

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We decided to make this an easy day, so we headed to some shops we were interested in around the Mountain View area. First stop was Supergo, a big cycle chain store, where Brendan bought a Camelbak. Next we went to the San Antonio shopping centre, an outside mall. We first had a look in […]

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First thing in the morning Brendan and I went out for a run (Brendan took Russell’s bike). We went down to the Stephen’s Creek walkway – an urban walkway that heads down towards the Shoreline (the shore of the San Francisco Bay).
At about 9.30 (when we hoped the rush hour traffic had died down) we […]

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We were headed to Montery for a 2 night excursion today, but we decided to visit a few more shops first, as we had a bit of time to spare. First stop was North Face, where I was looking for some trail running shoes. Unfortunately the shoes I tried on didn’t feel comfortable enough to […]

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We got up early enough to get to the aquarium by the 10am opening time, and spent three or four hours looking around the extensive displays and taking various feedings (otters, deep sea tank, kelp forest). The highlight was probably the amazing jellyfish displays. On our way back to the car we stopped at a […]

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First stop was back to the Carmel Mission. The church really looked very authentic, though we knew it had been restored at some point. There was a children’s mass going on inside it, though we were told we were free to go in to have a look. We felt a bit awkward about that, however […]

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We decided to have an ‘easy’ day today after our full day the day before.
First Brendan and I drove down to the ‘Shoreline’ park so I could go for a run. Even though it was fairly early in the morning, the sun was beating down, making it hard work for me, so my run […]

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Today was Santa Cruz day – picked for being a weekend and hence the boardwalk being open (we wanted to ride the roller coasters). We got there early enough to score a fairly good (if a little expensive) car park. However none of the boardwalk was open yet, so we headed to the Wharf, where […]

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Today we left the relative safety of Mountain View and embarked upon our 5 day Natural Wonders of California expedition. Our first target was the Calaveras Big Trees National Park. This was about a 5 hour drive. The first part of the drive was negotiating our way through the freeways a series of largish cities […]

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We got up fairly early, and after filling up on gas and a brief visit to the information centre, got on the road and headed for Yosemite National Park. After an hour or so we passed the park border then headed up several thousand feet on Glacier Road. At the top we found ourselves looking […]

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I woke up to find that I had caught Mum’s cold, which didn’t impress me much. First stop was a look at a souvenir shop (run by a chatty Australian lady) and the Mono Lakes information centre. Then we headed down a dusty 13 mile long road to Bodie State Historic Park, and got […]

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We headed from Bishop to Lone Pine and after a short stop at the information centre there, headed east toward Death Valley. We had two mountain ranges to cross to get to Death Valley itself, so had some pretty dramatic changes in elevation (not very comfortable on my blocked up ears). We stopped briefly at […]

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Sadly our Natural Wonders of California expedition had come to an end, and all we had left to do was to get back to Mountain View. Apart from a few Joshua trees (which we had seen the day before but not stopped to take photos of), the only interesting thing in the journey was the […]

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We went back into San Francisco to see some more of the tourist attractions. Our first stop was the Exploratorium. Due to a navigational misunderstanding we found ourselves at the top of a street that headed down towards where we wanted to go, unfortunately however there was no car access. Rather than driving around the […]

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We decided on a take-it-easy day today to rest and recover. Mum and Dad went out for a walk with Calvin; Brendan and I went down to Mountain View to have a look at the farmers market. This was quite interesting really – lots of fruit and vegetable sellers and also other stalls with fresh […]

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We went back into San Francisco to see some remaining attractions. Our main aim was Alcatraz, but alas, when we got there we unexpectedly discovered the tours were all completely sold out for today – this bummed us out somewhat. As a consolation we bought tickets for a harbour cruise instead. This turned out to […]

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Brendan and I had just about reached the end of our time in the US, so we had to head back down to LA to catch our flight home the next day. After packing our gear up we got away at about 10am and found our way onto the I-5 – where we stayed for […]

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Our last day was spent at Disney’s California Adventure – a sister park to Disneyland based around a California theme. Unfortunately we had to pay for parking because the motel would only let us keep our car there until 2pm, and we had to return it to the airport. We had a little bit of […]

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Mailboomer
A drop tower exactly like the one we’d gone on in Santa Cruz. Pretty cool, a good thrill.
Grizzly River RunGrizzly River Run
A water ride (white water rafting) in round boats through rapids. There are signs warning that you’ll get wet & we weren’t disappointed, we got soaked – which was a good thing because it […]

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