Day 14 - 28th Feb 2009

Woke up pretty early due to the early night last night and also the time difference. Adam went and got a McDonalds breakfast for us which we had on the balcony looking at the ocean. Then headed off to look for a bank. After trying several ATMs realised they were probably all going to charge so settled on the first one we'd tried near our hotel as this was the cheapest. Whilst searching for the ATM looked in a few shops and bought a present for Chloe. I hope she appreciates the fact that I've now got to carry it round for another 7 weeks! I think everyone else can have things from Delhi! Anyway the shop gave us a voucher for buy one get one free at the ice cream shop next door, you will hear more about this later...

We then decided to walk up to Diamond Head. Most it would seem either drive there or get a bus, so we walked all the way. Diamond Head is a volcanic crater which was used as a military command centre during wars. After paying our dollar each to get in, it was then quite a steep walk up to the top. This also involved a few stairs, some were pretty step and there were 99 of these then after this there were 54 spiral stairs. And not just spiral but metal steps which you can see through and which have gaps between them. Anyone who has previously accompanied me up stairs like this will know that I really don't like them. And to make matters worse there was only one set for going up and down, so you had to either time your ascent carefully or pass people on the stairs. Basically I was petrified but as I had been walking for well over an hour to get to the top I wasn't going to just stand at the bottom of the stairs. So I started my ascent but after about 20 steps there was a ledge where you could stop and let people past, so we stopped, and waited and waited. People kept coming past obviously wondering why I was just waiting on this ledge. I was stuck for a while, I really didn't want to go any further up but I also didn't want to go down! I'm sure my brothers and Mum and Dad can remember this situation well from previous family outings when I was a child. Eventually Adam decided to carry on up and take pictures and then collect me on the way down. Adam started the next flight of stairs and then stopped to say he could see the top and it wasn't very far, so I went for it, I didn't give me brain chance to think about it and just walked up the steps. A couple of turns in staircase later and we'd made it. It's so funny to see little kids just walking up and down with no problems at all and surely they more likely to fall through the gap than anyone!

The views from the top were worth the climb. So after a while looking around we heading back down. We walked all the way back to our hotel, figuring if we'd managed to walk there we could walk back. We were pretty tired by time we got back and it was pretty warm even though it kept spitting with rain.

Decided to head to the beach for a swim and then go and look for dinner. I managed perhaps half anf hour on the beach before getting restless so we decided that was enough lazing about for one day.

Had a thankfully small dinner before going to check out the ice cream shop. Of course with our voucher you had to buy like the biggest ice creams to get the one free, so that's what we did. Adam had a Mint mint chocolate chocolate and I had a strawberry supreme. Adam's was made from a scoop of mint ice cream which then had a chunk of chocolate brownie added to it and some chocolate chips and then some chocolate sauce. This was all mashed together and then put into a chocolate wafer cone. With hindsight I'm not sure we need the cones aswell! Mine was strawberry ice which then had strawberrys and pie crust mixed into it, as I didn't want the whipped cream and caramel I was give double strawberries and pie crust, this was then put into a chocolate wafer cone. It's hard to describe the size of these ice creams, but I couldn't manage all of mine! Adam did pretty well, just leaving some of the wafer. We got a few comments from passersby over the size of ice creams! To be honest I think the ice cream is probably the highlight to my trip to Hawaii, it was amazing.