AT MY BEST...: Travel

Mokoli'i Island, Hawaii - YouTube

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Returning to Reality - Missing Hawaii

6:00 PM

If any of you follow me on Instagram you will know that we took a long needed holiday and headed back to the tropics of beautiful Hawaii for 3.5 weeks. It was a great holiday, allowing us to see and do things that have been on our Hawaii bucket list for a while, and take in the differences between the different islands.

I will do a separate blog post for each place we stayed, but this post is more to let you all know that I am still alive. Although coming back to reality has not been easy!

Our first stop was Hilo on the Big Island of Hawaii. What a great place to have spent time. The people are amazing here and oh so helpful (Its not everyday you get a hug from the lady who saved us hours at AT&T!). They love sharing their part of the world with you and there was always someone to talk to. Its also the gateway to Hawaii Volcanoes National Park which is a sight to behold!

Stop 2 was Napili on the island of Maui. Maui is a very different island to the Big Island, and had plenty of things to do. We saw Honu (sea turtles) in the wild on an uncrowded beach, touched the sky from the top of a Volcano and took the narrow, windy road to Hana to see the real Hawaii. This was our first ever AirBnB experience, we shopped and lived like locals, ate some amazing food and explored the historic town of Lahaina.

Our third stop was on the island of Oahu, but away from the main tourist area. We lived like locals in Hale'iwa on the stunning North Shore. I love the island of Oahu so so much, and having the chance to stay on the North Shore, rather than just a day trip was on that bucket list. It is the most laid back town, where everyone is so friendly and happy to have a laugh. This place was my relaxation place and I will be back (hopefully next time in their winter to catch placed like Pipeline pumping).

And if you are after shopping and hitting up placed to see and be seen, there is not going past Waikiki (even if it is just to eat at The Cheesecake Factory). After spending time away from here, my love for Waikiki is fading, but seeing Diamond Head always makes me smile. It is my reminder that I am in the Hawaiian Islands - my favorite place on earth.

For those of you thinking of heading to the islands, please leave your questions for me and I will answer them when I do the more in depth blog posts. I love these places, and would love to pass on this love and knowledge so that others can fall in love too.

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'Today' - Layout

6:30 AM

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Day Trip to Sydney & Vivid - Video

7:52 PM

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Biking the Golden Gate Bridge - Video

7:30 AM

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Life Right Now

6:30 AM

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Riding Cable Cars in San Francisco

1:24 PM

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Travel Review - New Zealand: White Island with Frontier Helicopters

7:00 AM

There is a reason for this post coming up first in the run down from our recent New Zealand holiday. Visiting an active volcano has been on my bucket list forever. Seriously, I wanted to be a volcanologist when I was growing up. I have been close to places with volcanoes in the past, both Vanuatu and Hawaii, but both weren't on the doorstep to where we were staying.

White Island was different. It is 50km directly off shore from Whakatane on the East coast of New Zealands North Island and can be seen with the naked eye on a clear day, steaming away towards the horizon.

After doing our research we had a few alternatives to see this fascinating island. There is a light plane that fly's over, the good ship PeeJay that operates out of Whakatane and docks at the island, and the option we took, a 2 hour helicopter flight and tour with Frontier Helicopters. As there are different means to viewing the island, they are also different price ranges, so check your budget prior to picking how you see this wonderful marvel.

Frontier Helicopters operate out of Whakatane Airport and run 2 different helicopters out to the island, at a cost of $650 NZD per person. By taking this option, which is by far the most expensive of the three, you are getting the best of both worlds in terms of seeing the island from the air and being able to walk the surface.

The safety briefing was concise and we were on our way. The flight time one way being around 20 minutes, this leaves about an hour on the volcano floor with your tour guide (also your pilot).

You don't have to be super fit to do this tour. The hills are rolling and it is a slow paced tour. There are a couple of little streams that you need to step across (and in my case stop and test the water temp with my fingers).

You will encounter bubbling mud pools, sulfur yellowing the ground in places, steam coming from everywhere you can see, and the smell (which isn't anywhere as bad as you would think). The land is baron with only a few trees growing on the Eastern side of the volcano. You can imagine a film set looking like the surface of Mars.

There has been several attempts to mine the sulfur on this site over the years, all failing, but leaving behind a glimpse of the past for you to see. Your tour will take you to the last standing building and the machinery left behind from these days. Viewing these items up close where you can touch them, will give you a good sense of why sulfur mining was not viable.

The safety equipment issued includes a life jacket to be worn only for the flights, and a hard hat and gas mask while on the ground on White Island. These are all legal requirements, but the gas mask is not necessarily worn the whole time, only when you feel the smell is too much. We did out trip with someone that insisted on wearing it the whole time. Personally, I only wore it to take a couple of photos before I had to hand it back (seriously, how often to you get the chance to wear a gas mask). The sulfur can catch you in the back of the throat, and it will help with that, but it is not dangerous to be inhaled. All flights are GPS tracked and monitored while you are out there.

If you are in it for the photos, because lets face it, in this day of digital recording and social media, who isn't, there is nothing that you cant snap a picture of. Between two of us, we had a DSLR, iphone 5C and a GoPro Hero 3. All of which were used for our documenting process. We had both of the middle back seats on the way out to the island, yet we still got decent photos. I will advise if you are given a seat on the window, please be respectful of the people in the middle seats as they will be trying to get photos around you.

Scientists are always monitoring this island and the team at Frontier are constantly in contact with them, being their eyes on the ground and reporting things that look a little different. If there are issues with weather, or the island, flights will be cancelled and re-scheduled where possible. The staff are super helpful and willing to answer any questions you have, including putting your mind at ease if you are a little uncertain about flying.

We booked our flight through the Frontier Helicopters website, which was easy to use. And don't forget to follow their facebook page as your guide will be taking photos out there on the ground, just in case they pop up.

This trip was one of the best 2 hours of my life, putting a big fat tick in that bucket list box for both the Volcano and helicopter flight (and getting hubby to agree to doing more things like this when travelling). The team from Frontier were fantastic, the tour was relaxed and one that I highly recommend.

The views expressed in this post are my own opinion only and this is in no way affiliated with Frontier Helicopters.

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New Zealand Holiday in Review - January 2016

6:30 AM

I will admit that even though I love to travel, and New Zealand is our close neighbour (its closer to fly there from the Australian East Coast than to the other side of Australia), and one of our closest overseas destinations, it was never on my list of places to go. I just didn't find it appealing. I didn't think I would get the history and culture of other places in the world (which are also more expensive to get to and a lot further away) or the spectacular scenery or beautiful beaches. I figured it would be a good place to travel with young kids and tour in a motor home, to give them a stamp in their passport. My hubby on the other hand has wanted to go there for a long time.

I can now say that after a 9 day family holiday, I was wrong!

There were so many more things to do and see there than I ever thought. And being a smaller island, it really did take long to drive from one side to the other.

We did only visit the North Island this time, basing ourselves in a beach town called Port Ohope, which is a short 10 minute drive over the hill from Whakatane, the closest larger town base.

From here, Rotorua was about a 1 hour drive, Lake Taupo 2 hours and Auckland 3 hours. The scenery is beautiful, and the roads in good condition, so the drives weren't bad, but a bit windy in places (travel sickness sufferers be warned).

Here are the things we did and places we visited (some of which I will have separate posts coming up on):

Rotorua

The Rotorua Museum and Bathhouse

Rainbow Springs

Agrodome

Skyline Gondola and Luge

Taupo

Lake Taupo - Earnest Kemp replica steamboat

Taupo Bungee

Waiotapu Geothermal Wonderland

White Island (Active Volcano)
Hobbiton Movie Set

Yes, Rotorua stinks like rotten egg in places, but don't judge the whole town on that alone. If you can get through it, you will find some wonderful things. TIP: If you are driving through town, put your car on air recycle rather than drawing from the outside and you should be fine.

Taupo is somewhere we will be back to. It is a thriving town and had access to both summer and winter activities, such as mountain biking and skiing.

If you are even a little bit interested in how alive our earth is under our feet, this is the area you want to visit. To have access to directly stand on an active volcano 50km out to sea, see bubbling mud baths and feel the heat of steam and see the sulphur coming directly from the earth, this is the place for you as you can do it all.

As you can see, I am enthusiastic about getting back there and seeing more of the beautiful countryside that this neighbour has to offer.

If you have any questions about our adventures, please leave them in the comments below and I will be happy to answer what I can from our experiences.

I hope you can join me again for a closer look at some of these places we went to.

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New Zealand Holiday Journal - Midori Travellers Notebook Style

9:30 AM

After putting up the post (which can be found here) while I was on holidays about the mini kit that I took with me, I have been asked by a lot of people to share the end result. The mini kit consisted of the journal, ink pad, stamps, washi strips/rolls, scissors, pen, stamp blog, adhesive, instax film and my SP1 Share Printer.

I loved this project as it was a great way to document the daily activities and the trip, but also to feel like I have achieved a form of scrapbooking without having to add it to the never ending 'to-do' list on my return home.

I have been watching a lot of Amy Tangerines YouTube videos.... Who am I kidding, I think I have watched just about everything I could get my hands on... And I have realised that even the pros make mistakes and have to cover them up. They are just as normal as each of us, so I have been spending a bit of time stamping on cards and planners, so this book wasn't going to be any different. The only challenge with the stamping is that once it is in the book, I can't go and tear out the page if I didn't like it or it didn't work. I think I was so excited about this project that that last thought never even crossed my mind. It was purely a thought process that I would be able to simply cover it over with a piece of washi tape, or move items around to make the page work.

And work it did :-)

This note book is a passport size rather than the full Midori Travellers Notebook size, which worked, but I would like to try this same style project with the larger size to see if I liked it better.... Looks like I need to plan another holiday!

All of the photos have been simply printed from my iPhone or iPad onto the instax film through the SP-1 photo printer (which is super small and portable).

This project was also a great way to incorporate small bits of memorabilia, as you will see throughout the notebook.

Using available items on hand such as the luggage tag for the airline is a great item to incorporate into any travel album.

This album became all about good placement of stamping and washi tape, but worked so well.

Memorabilia items such as serviettes and tour group stickers are perfect elements for a travel book this size.

I have used a straw packet from Wendys to help identify where we were at when that photo was taken. The ticket to the Agrodome was the perfect addition rather than photos and helps identify the date and time of the event.

Using rub-ons were a great addition as they were flat and could be overlayed onto the photos as well as the paper.

Where there are no photos that help tell the story, use business cards such as the above, in a full or partial manner.

Entry tickets and passes are perfect memorabilia to include.

Drawing a page outline can help isolate different days in the journal.

I will give you the tip, instax photos are hard to photograph well for blog posts!!

Spelling mistakes, stamping mishaps and all, this journal/album tells the basic details. When I travel I tend to write pages full of detail and get halfway through the holiday and then don't have the time to keep up. This one was different. But the only thing different is essentially this is a dot point version of each day with a main event photo. This method worked well and I will be trying it again on my next holiday.

If you have any questions on this project or process, please leave them below and I will give you all of the tips and techniques that I can to help you achieve something similar for an event in your life.