6 December 2007 - The Lost World

We got our pre-booked shuttle to the airport and checked in. We booked our return flights there-something we wouldn't be able to do anytime else as we don't have a credit card (advise for future travelers-Bring one!!). Matt lost his bag containing tickets/passports/DVD player/DVDs when he put his bag down for a nano second and it was whipped up by security without us knowing as a potential security risk. Luckily we got it back quickly. When we arrived in Kauai we decided for the hell of it to see if could hire a car and avoid wasting all that money on a taxi. There was only one rental company who accepted cash deposits-Alamo. After about an hour of haggling down the deposit and a load of other complications we managed to get a car for 60 bucks with just $100 deposit. This meant we could drive our stuff up to the resort and then check out the island before returning the car later the next day and getting the bus back to the resort (the bus company doesn't allow you to take any sizable luggage on board). We did a big shop in a town called Kapaa to stock up on a weeks supplies and then finished the hour drive to Princeville at the top of the island. The resort-the Makai Club was a very pleasant surprise indeed! It's gorgeous-definitely the best one we've had so far. It's totally huge and basically covers most of Princeville. Our apartment is also huge and has a fully equipped kitchen and all the mod cons you'd expect-we were well chuffed.

In the morning we had a welcome meeting by the pool with a free breakfast :donuts muffins and coffee (nobody drinks tea in America, you don't even get a kettle in the room!). We learned that Kauai is a popular location for filming and discovered that it played host to the shooting of Jurassic Park, King Kong, Outbreak, Dragonfly and the Indiana Jones films as well as many more. After the meeting we drove round the whole island. Its so untouched and picturesque with beaches which stretch on forever along with dramatic waterfalls amid jungle settings. We drove to the area where Jurassic Park was filmed and got pictures of that waterfall which is seen when they first touch down in the helicopter. It started raining pretty heavily so unfortunately we were unable to do a trek to the Kauai canyons which we wanted to do. We returned the car and had to get the bus back. We knew the bus took about 2 hours and wasn't due to arrive for another 2 hours so decided to try and hitch-hike.. We wrote 'Princeville' on a board and held it out by the side of the road. We got moved on by the car rental security who didn't want their customers harassed as soon as they drove out of their car park. We headed for the highway but no bugger stopped so we had to get the bus..

The weather here in Princeville has been pretty dire for our week-mainly rain with a few moments of sunshine. On our penultimate night here we had some severe storms-probably the worst either of us has ever seen-worse than the storms of Newcastle in Auzzy! Bolts of lightening lit up the sky all night as the rain and wind attacked our top-floor apartment. We had about 5 powercutts, which in this quiet, unlit area means total blackout which was pretty scary. Reception handed out some glowsticks which helped a little. In the morning the wreckage was clear..tree's down and roads blocked with foliage..they were transporting lorry loads of this away all day..

We've got a slight dilemma in that our flight to Canada is at 9am and the earliest flight to Honolulu where we make that flight arrives at 9am so we've going to have to leave our timeshare early and spend one more night in Hono so we can make that early flight. We're thinking about ringing that bloke Dave we met to see if he fancies putting us up for the night..

WOOOO HOO-Finally we're up to date-sorry we got so behind guys, your patience has been much appreciated!

Next stop is a snow-covered Canada which should get us feeling christmassy.. (December in Hawaii just doesn't feel right somehow!)