Sydney to Honolulu

On June 28 1986 myself, my mother-in-law Jean and her aunt Myra, set out on a four week trip around the world.

Honolulu

We met up at Sydney airport, with various family members there to see us off.  Myra's daughters Kay and Gwen with their husbands Ray and Dick, came from Cowra and Sydney respectively, Uncle Richie came from Gunnedah and Neil came from Canberra where he had moved to for work.  I was still in Gunnedah at Gunnedah High teaching English, waiting on a transfer to Yass High School, just outside Canberra. I had decided to enrol in a two week course at the Eurocentre in Paris to improve my mastery of French language, so took two weeks' holiday and an extra two weeks for travel.  Somewhere along the line I decided it would be nice to have Jean along for company, and as Myra had just lost her sister Josie not long before, she ended up coming too.  They were to go to Scotland and Ireland whist I was on my course in Paris.  

At 1445 we took off on Continental Airlines flight CO8, bound for Honolulu, the first leg of our trip.

We were greeted on arival by the usual lei carrying young men, before making our way to the Edgewater Hotel, and our first dose of pancakes for breakfast.

Honolulu Day 2

Today we went our separate ways. After going on a tour of Waikiki, Myra and Jean went on a boat trip to Pearl Harbour while I went to the zoo and then snorkelling at Hanauma Bay.  On the tour we saw where they made Magnum PI, which was popular at the time.

Honolulu to LA

This morning Jean and I visited the Ala Moana market area while Myra had a sleep in.  After a last visit to the beach, we headed to the airport once again to fly out at 2.45pm, bound for Los Angeles.
After 5 hours flying time and a cab ride we arrived at the Penny Sleeper in around midnight. Not much to do except what the name suggested.

Disneyland

Today, as the title suggests, was spent at Disneyland, after a sleep in.  We  caught the bus back to the hotel at 6.30pm, .  We had to be up early the next morning to catch the plane to the Big Apple.

New York, New York

We left the Penny Sleeper at 5.30am by taxi then bus to the airport for our flight to New York via Baltimore. We finally arrived at 8.15pm.  From there we caught our first New York cab to our motel, the Omni Park Central on 7th Avenue, right across the street from Carnegie Hall.  Now called Park Central, as it was when it was first built in the late 1920s, it was organised for us by the parents of an exchange student I had in Gunnedah High School at the time. Unfortunately I did not get to meet them as they could not battle the traffic from Long Island where they lived to come into Manhatten, as it was not only the 4th of July weeked, but also the 200th anniversary of the opening of the Statue of Liberty! Instead they left flowers for me in the unit, which was thoughtful. However the route to our room was fraught with drama ....

After much difficulty communicating with the receptionist who could not understand my Kiwi/Aussie accent, we left our bags with the porter and made our way to the tenth floor to find our room. But then the lift stopped inexplicably on the 9th floor. We phoned reception on the lift phone, but suddenly we shot up to the 26th floor! We got out there to find it deserted, apart from a piano sitting all on its own.  So bizarre.  After finding that the lifts were now not working we walked down two floors and tried the lifts on the other side of the building.  They worked, and we finally made it to the tenth floor - but couldn't find the room!  Meanwhile the porter who had our bags could not get in as we had the key, so he went away again. We missed him at reception so when we went successfully back up to our room we had a key but no luggage!  It eventually arrived and all was well.  We went to a cafe nearby for tea, spending what American dollars we had (only travellers cheques and cash in those days), then fell into bed, ready for a big, but hopefully not as problematic, day tomorrow.

A Day in the Big Apple

This day would prove to be a huge one, full of new experiences, mostly good ones.

The first thing we did was walk to Central Park as we were so close to it. There we took a horse drawn carriage tour, which I know the locals don't think is a good thing for the animals, but not being locals of course we did it.

From there we proceeded to walk down  Fifth Avenue to the Empire State Building, but the queue was so long to go up that we decided to keep going down to Battery Point to view the Statue of Liberty.  It was during this walk that Myra had her purse stolen.  There were so many people around, being a public holiday, that even though she saw the hand go into her bag (which unfortunately was open), there was nothing she could do about it. A hard lesson to learn, but in true Myra style she just got on with it and kept going, handbag closed.

After a walk off the beaten track to locate a post office we made it back to Fifth Avenue and down through Washington Square, Soho and Chinatown.  By now we were all exhausted and so did the rest of the trip by subway down to Battery Point.

Of course once there we encountered more huge crowds, so instead of getting on a ferry to the Statue we just walked around the park instead.There were police everywhere, and we counted fourteen on our subway carriage, so we all felt pretty safe.

After looking around we got back on the subway to 67th Street and our hotel.  Myra wanted to get off half way and have another go at getting up the Empire State Building, but we managed to talk her out of it!

That night we watched the dedication ceremony for the 200th anniversary of the Statue, which included speeches by Ronald and Nancy Reagen, Francois and Danielle Mitterand and various movie stars of the time.  It ended with fireworks of course.

Day 2 cont'd