This is me relaxing at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. If I look tired, there’s a good reason.
It’s late afternoon. So far today, January 19th 2001, this is what I’ve done:
- woken up and had a leisurely breakfast in Auckland, and done a little shopping
- boarded a flight bound for Honolulu and spent the best part of 10 hours on the plane
- got a few hours sleep at an airport motel
- made an early morning visit to the Pearl Harbor and the USS Arizona memorial
- dipped our feet in the sea at Waikiki Beach
- taken another flight to the main island of Hawaii
- picked up a rental car and driven for two hours to the Volcanoes National Park
- checked in, showered and then taken a hike to this spot
This is of course, all possible due to the quirk of time travel that is the International Date Line. By flying from New Zealand to Hawaii we were able to move not just the hours forward a little on our watch, but the date back by a day; thus meaning that we did Tuesday all over again.
There are many time honoured traditions that should be followed when crossing the Date Line. For us the only welcome was from some very surly US Immigration folks, in the days before they were all sent to charm school (aren’t they so much better these days!)
As a traveller on a round the world ticket it was fantastic to get another free day of our trip. It must be awful if you go the other way and lose an entire day by going westwards. What a waste of a day it is! No wonder few people go that way.
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