The Rock

The Rock

We were up and packed then a massive trolley load of bags stuffed into storage for the day while we ventured off to Alcatraz. The kids loved the saying "if you break the rules you go to jail, if you break the jail rules you go to Alcatraz" and kept repeating that for days. The tour was amazing and it is such beautiful Island with such a chequered history. The Audio tour was absolutely amazing and it makes for a pretty quiet and eerie experience as no one is really talking they are all listening intently to their head sets. We are so glad we came over and did this and the views from the island were incredible.

Upon return to the mainland we went to pick up our fill size vehicle from hertz only to have to grade to an SUV as our bags didn't fit. Yikes! Thank goodness for Koru club and their bag allowance!

We excited the city on the coast road headed for Santa Cruz for our first stop. What an amazing trip, very beautiful coast road, very similar to home and so amazing to follow the sea. We had to stop at so many vista points along the way .... Which is hilarious as just about everyone on that stretch of road will be driving along then just zip off when they see a great view. 

We got into Santa Cruz just after dark and found our hotel which is perched on the cliff top above the sea with an awesome view of the bay, board walk and the famous pier. We dumped the bags in the room and went downstairs to enjoy wine and cheese and meet some people.....we found out that shock, horror the board walk is closed at this time of the year and only opens on weekends.... I was gutted! I was so looking forward to this famous board walk where they filmed lost boys etc. 

We walked around a bit that night then played pirate mini golf which was fab .... Love how they theme everything here....cannons were going off, pirates popping up out of no where, talking monkey's, waterfalls, ships and pirate paraphanalia everywhere... off to bed with the sound of the sea .... Magic. A great day.