We made it to the dry side!

We are now in Kailua-Kona for the next week, or best part thereof. Here on the 'dry' side of the island, the leeward side on the other side of the mountain range, and therefore immune to rain. Mostly! It seems like in Hawaii though, most of the rain just hangs about up in the mountains in the middle, and the coast is mostly sunny!

The day started off with a short visit to the Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden. That turned into a long visit... nearly 3 hours later we trekked off! There was a whole bunch of stuff to see though. Plants. And waterfalls. And ocean views. And... well you get the general idea:

Plant-free photos from the gardens

Of course there is a range of plants, from those that (apparently) we have at our garden at home, to wacky plants that looked more like Transformers:

Plants from the gardens

And what's a botanical garden without a parrot cage?

Complete with parrot cage!

After dragging ourselves back up the long hill and into the car, we gratefully turned the AC dial up and headed towards Waipio Valley Lookout. A rather well-known spot, judging from the distance the car had to be parked from the lookout. A short walk from the car park takes you to the lookout, where you can hike down to the beach and nearby waterfall:

Waipio Valley Lookout

Declining the hike because (a) not enough time and (b) can't be arsed, we headed past a couple of towns on our way towards Kona. First up was Honoka'a, the closest town to the lookout:

Honoka'a old town

To Waimea, a spread-out, nice town in the mountains, where we had a Starbucks stop for refreshment and wifi - the busiest Starbucks we've seen so far and the staff were almost a blur they were working so fast - very impressive!

Waimea

Fast-forward nearly an hour, to Kona where the sun was just starting to set. Cue a few lightning-fast photos out of the car window of the sunset:

Sunset from the car window

Not that the 25mph speed limit was any barrier to taking photos. The speed limits here are just weird in some places.

So next few days will combine some time to chill out, ready for Kauai, with some must-see attractions that will take up the rest of the time. See ya!

Felicity says:

A long driving day but it was great to see the beautiful scenery. The only other time I have done this drive it poured with rain so I had to give the gardens and the lookout a miss. I've really noticed the heat this trip, usually when I visit at this time of year it is quite pleasant. But the Nissan has a "Max Aircon" button - you just hit it when the car starts - awesome. 

Au revoir, Europe!

Well, we made it to the airport safely! Now all we need to do is make it home.

You can see some photos of today on Flickr:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/81692166@N05/sets/72157645709737341/

After getting mum to the train station well before 8, we headed to the Port of Dover, where we drove onto our ferry to Calais. This particular route is one of the busiest large ferry routes in the world - there are many, many crossings each day. The 90-minute crossing was fairly uneventful, although I did capture a couple of wicked photos of the white cliffs as we left:

The White Cliffs of Dover

See you later, England!:

See you later, England!

There was a complete absence of border control of Calais - you literally just drive off the ferry straight onto the motorway. We decided to go along the road nearer the coast, rather than just using the motorway. Our planned route took us past some spectacular scenery and over the city of Boulogne-sur-Mer. We wound up in Abbeville, where we had a brief look around:

Abbeville

After we found out the nearby Chateau was shut, we soldiered on towards Paris. By complete accident we went past Chateau de Chantilly around sunset, which was just magnificent:

Chantilly

After another hour or so, driving through some dense forests and sparse farmland, we made it to Charles de Gaulle Airport - the Renault lease car drop-off point, to be precise. It’s some distance to CDG, transport to which is provided free of charge with a transfer van.

I’ll upload a couple more blogs detailing our whole airport-airline experience until Brisbane. Au revoir until then!

The white cliffs... more of a dark grey

Our last day of travelling in Britain today, where we drove south all the way to the coast and Dover. Given that it was our last day and all, we decided to go straight to the White Cliffs of Dover, rather than going to our hotel first.

Dover on Flickr:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/81692166@N05/sets/72157647343129007/

After abandoning mum because she didn’t want to walk the length of the trail, we headed off on our merry way. The weather was decent, on the walk over, and I was really impressed, not by the cliffs themselves, but by the ruggedness of the coastline. It’s hard to describe, it just “had that feel about it”, with just the right amount of flowering bushes mixed in with barbed-wire and wood fences and green grass:

Rugged White Cliffs

Of course there are the white cliffs, which are pretty spectacular, although you can’t actually go down to sea level any more - there was a landslide several years ago that they still haven’t deemed safe to traverse. I’m having flashbacks to Cinque Terre here:

The White Cliffs

The sunshine lasted until we reached the lighthouse, when we realised it was going to rain. We had a tour of said lighthouse, which was actually quite interesting. All the old machinery was still there, and we got to turn the old handle and watch one of the original mechanisms rotate the light. The lighthouse has long since shut down after the dangerous reefs shifted to the west by several miles:

The lighthouse of the White Cliffs

We power-walked the way back, not wanting to get too wet. As it turned out it didn’t rain too heavily, but the white cliffs had turned a fabulously mediocre grey in colour. Booo-ring!

Back to our hotel, where we walked around to a local pub and had another traditional British pub meal - our very last! Tomorrow we’ll throw mum out at the train station in Dover, where she’ll embark on the rest of her trip. We’ll get the ferry across the Channel and cruise on down to Paris. Until tomorrow!

Back to university?

On to Cambridge today, and one of the few places in England that I insisted we visit. Having never been before, I was keen to see some of the universities and their architecture.

You can see Cambridge on Flickr:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/81692166@N05/sets/72157647343129017/

After picking a (relative expensive) car park, we walked along one of the major thoroughfares for a while, coming across the Fitzwilliam Museum. It’s a fantastic collection of artwork and historical artefacts, including an Egyptian sarcophagus (which I didn’t get to see). While going and seeing it properly would have been nice, we were limited with time, so decided against it:

The Fitzwilliam Museum

Then we got to the core of Cambridge: its universities. At this point we split up, as I wanted to do some exploring, whereas mum and dad were more content to wander around the other part of town. They weren’t free to get into - I suspect that may have had something to do with it.

First up I went into Queens College, one of the smaller universities, and walked through a few of its buildings and along the River Cam. Cambridge is known for its ‘punting’ along this small canal-like river, and I personally think it is way too commercialised. There are dozens of them in a continuous chain going up- and downriver, as well as a few causing havoc in their amateurish attempts at punting:

Queens College and the River Cam

My next target was Kings College. I ended up not going in, as not only had I forgotten my student card for discounted entry, but the entry fee was enormous. I think it was 7 or 8 pounds each. Something I can leave to next time - because I will surely be coming back.

A bit more of a cruise around later, I headed back to our meeting point at the Fitzwilliam Museum, as I was out of phone credit. We ended up walking back to the car the long way, when I had the good fortune to stumble upon Pembroke College. This college was almost the smallest of them all, but with the most fantastic colour contrasts in its buildings and trees:

Pembroke College

That was about the end of Cambridge for us. Mum and dad at least - there is so much here to see that I’ll definitely be back one day. We’re staying about a half-hour north of Cambridge tonight, and we’ll journey to Dover tomorrow. The end is in sight!

Some more from today