Firstly I am so so sorry that there is no way I can get the smell of everything here to you…someone needs to invent a scratch and sniff email or something because the smells here are divine! The flowers, the fruit growing everywhere, even the rain smells heavenly. The whole place is an assault on your senses, the colours are so vivid and bright and everything grows like crazy. I quote the gardener “poke a stick in the mud while you’re here and you’ll have a tree to take home”. It is so true! (although we will not try to bring anything home after the whole lemons at the border thing!!)

Because the Island gets plenty of rain it is so lush and green and perfect so while I am rattling on about how amazing everything smells you’ll just have to use your imaginations!

Day 1. We did what everyone does the second you move into a place for a week or so…we went shopping! We were so excited to have an oven it was like Christmas; and after been fed like it was Christmas at the Garnetts the Hawaii body preparation had been as successful as rhinoplasty on an elephant so we no longer cared about our physique! This led to the floodgates being well and truly opened  and as we left the shop with steaks the size of said elephants ears, ribs to feed a family of five AND bacon and eggs etc not to mention enough wine and beer to sink a battleship! We felt a little greedy until we got home and couldn’t decide what to eat first! After eating ourselves almost to death we soaked up some rays by the pool, a bit fidgety at first for lack of ‘something to do’ but we soon got into the swing of it…literally!

Day 2. We did what everyone that knows us knew we would do…we went food shopping…again! This time to the farmers market for local fruit and veg. We came home with bags and bags of stuff for $15 dollars…4 papayas (which by the way aren’t that nice) for $1 thats like 60 pence! We got purple potatoes, a fresh coconut, bananas, an avocado the size of Alex’s head, a HUGE watermelon and all sorts of treats. Alex made a gallon of papaya smoothie which I thought tasted just like feet but each to their own and we yet again spent the day cooking and eating and sitting by the pool! Heavenly! Until I noticed the heat rash appearing on my neck! Stupid skin! I went to bed covered in baking powder in a sulk!

Day 3 we decided we should really go further than our front door and set off our for a day exploring. I covered my attractive heat rash with a scarf and we drove around just getting our bearings. We went to the drive through (?) pharmacy and got some heat rash cream and then spent 5 hours cooking all of the ribs thinking we could invite the neighbours round for ribs and drinks. The neighbours were out until late so we ate them all to ourselves and laid in front of the TV like couch potatoes!

Anyway, as you can imagine after this point, we no longer knew what day it was as we were so damn relaxed all the days rolled into one! We revelled in not having to think about where we were going tomorrow and booking somewhere to stay, worrying about the fuel getting us where we needed to go within the budget and whether or not we were parked on the hill and if the fridge was going to pack up! Like I said, it didn’t take us long to get used to being in one place for longer than a day!

We continued to live the life everyone wishes they could live every day…sunning ourselves, Alex going a lovely bronze (mostly) while I stay almost a hue of skin colour at best with a spattering of bright red heat rash on a good day! We went out for a Mexican meal with our neighbours Ryan and Kelsey who were on holiday from Seattle, went to Akaka falls and walked through the rainforest surrounding it. The prehistoric looking flowers and the huge leaves hanging over our heads and the vines hanging from the trees the way they do in the movies (like Indiana Jones…yes they really do grow like that!) were just out of this world. If you get the chance to watch Jurassic Park (the first one) any time soon, watch it and think of us in the rainforest scenes, it really is like that here…just with tiny lizards instead on ginormeous dinosaurs!

We popped in to see the boiling pots but they weren’t boiling that day and we also went to the zoo to watch Namaste the resident Bengal tiger have his dinner. Pana’ ewa zoo is free and has beautiful gardens and lots of animals, some from the Islands and all that have been rescued or ‘donated’. Namaste is 13 years old and he is a white bengal tiger with crossed blue eyes! His species in the wild is very endangered. He is such a majestic creature and it made me sad to see him penned in but I then started to think how else we would ever be able to see these animals and he would have never made it in the wild! He was hand-raised in Las Vegas by a magician who donated him to the zoo at 7 months old and he has lived in his huge enclosure since. Male tigers are solitary animals and “Namaste is very happy in his home.

He knows everything and everybody associated with the zoo. Some of his daily routines include patrolling, basking in the sun, playing in the water with his toys, sleeping, sharpening claws” and he is especially good at posing regally. He is fed 3 whole chickens, 10 lb. meat, ground bone and vitamins every day (but we spied at least 3 steaks in his pile of meat…I think he must be the chefs favourite!) at 3:30 every afternoon in his house where he spends the night and is let out the next morning. He has apparently caught and eaten several jungle fowl and peacocks that roam rather bravely (or stupidly) in his enclosure! We watched him for about an hour and heard him ‘purring’ and saw him doing plenty of posing!

The zoo houses several rather chatty parrots, 2 giant ant eaters which are amazing but very odd looking creatures, some giant tortoises, a very grumpy looking feral piggy, monkeys, big lizards and some crazy coloured frogs! I made a really good friend in a brightly coloured Lady Amherst Pheasant. He was the biggest show off I have ever met (yes, more so than Alex) and loved that I was imitating the noise he was making and followed me up and down the fence for a good 20 minutes whilst Alex laid on the floor trying to take his picture!  At one point Alex jumped up with a little squeal when he realised he was laid with his face next to a huge fat ‘red Tegu’ which Alex named a ‘fat toad lizard’ with just a piece of chicken wire between them! (have a look in the reptile section on the animal facts page)

Anyway, I could go on forever about all of the animals there, it is such a great place to spend the day and we went back 3 times just to wander through the beautiful gardens. The Zoo’s site is really great and tells you the story of each of the animals so have a look if you’re interested and here’s my friendly pheasant!

Find out what happens next on our wedding adventure travel blog!