The final instalment. Finally.

Of the holiday stories, that is, not the whole blog...

So, I last updated you from Te Anau where we were looking forward to celebrating NYE 13 hours ahead of our friends and families back home. We went out for a grand meal and then headed to Te Anau's Fiordland cinema to see Ata Whenua, a simply amazing piece of cinema showcasing the very beautiful Fiordland region of South Island (part of which we had spent the previous day sailing). It is such an incredible part of the world, and the film really does do it justice.

Unfortunately, I then went down with a stomach bug and didn't even last till midnight, which was a miserable disappointment :( The bug lasted for the next few days, which was (not) fun given the amount of travelling we had lined up....

I will gloss over our last night in NZ, since I was ill and my dear father-in-law had booked us into the scuzziest hotel I've ever been unfortunate enough to stay in. Whatever you do, folks, avoid the Glenorchy Hotel in Glenorchy (unless you are in search of the world's smallest en suite, have a surplus of lightshades which you need to offload, or enjoy it when people throw parties outside your window). The good news is that we were only there for one night; the bad news is that when we left it was to begin a 27 hour journey, involving 5 airports, 4 planes, and a whole lot of grumbling on my part.

Things definitely looked up when we finally reached our next stop, the glorious, delightful, luxurious Palm Cliffs House Inn near Hilo, on Hawaii's Big Island. This was quite the antithesis of our previous accommodation; a whopper of our room, with its own lanai (veranda-type-thing), jacuzzi, blessedly comfortable king size, DVD player and extensive dvd library, and roar of the ocean right under our window. Ahhh, we were set for many days of rest and recuperation.

Nonetheless we did manage to haul ourselves out of bed each day to head out and discover a bit of Hawaii (the "Big Island", after which the state was named by Big Island-born King Kamehameha). It has a quite different character to the other, more touristy/resorty islands, and certainly the east and north sides that we explored were very unspoiled and still redolent of Hawaii's plantation heritage. We came across some wonderful scenery and some lovely old buildings (and yes, you've guessed it, the pictures are all on Flickr - here's one of my favourites, from somewhere up in the Kohala mountains:)

And here's one that probably looks a bit more like you'd imagine Hawaii:

All in all, it was a lovely, chilled few days and a fitting end to a great trip. Happily, our month away felt like just the right amount of time for me and I was actually looking forward to getting home by the end. And 10 days on, it feels like we never went away .....