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Published: July 16th 2008
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On Friday, after a delay out of las Vegas and another delay out of san Francisco we finally made it to Hawaii... Although it was so late we didn't do anything other than check in hehe
Have a full ocean view overlooking waikiki beach and it is awesome!!!
So sat we had a look through brochures over breakfast and decided to do a luau and a full island circle tour, so booked those, the luau for that night and the island tour for Sunday.
With that mission accomplished I then went and investigated surf schools... Went and got changed into swimmers and signed myself up! It was amazing!!! I had so much fun! There was only 3 of us in the group which is was good, not too many people for me to embaress myself in front of! Hehe
So after learning the basics in about 5 mins on land, we hit the waves! I got to putting my feet on the board, but fell before I could stand on the first go... But after that look out waves cos here I come! Made it up and rode on quite a few waves throughout the hour and
a half we were out there. I had so much fun, it was about 1000 times better than I ever imagined it could be! Of course I then ran back to the hotel to tell mum all about it!
That night we went to germaine's luau. We jumped on a bus and had a good laugh over the 15 Hawaiian minutes it took to get there. When we arrived we were each given a lei and had our photo taken with the sunset over the beach behind us. We grabbed a table and were entertained by song and dance until dinner when we got to dig into a buffet of the freshest food I have seen in a while. The singing and dancing continued through dinner with a bit more audience participation, including me and a hundred other girls up on stage trying to hula! Then came the serious dances... The ones with fire and so on. This went on for about 3 hours and we had a fantastic time eating drinking dancing and being entertained the whole time, even along the bus trip home when we learnt a Hawaiian song that has been stuck in both mum's and
my head ever since!
Sunday was our tour of the island. We headed first towards diamond head and kahala, home to the rich and famous and laden with 35 million dollar homes! We continued up to hanauma bay which is a really popular snorkel spot. It was stunning, crystal clear water with an amazing mountain backdrop... Beautiful! We even were lucky enough to spot a seal sunbaking while we were there.
We continued along the coast with a few stops, one at Kane'ohe for some views of rabbit island and to look out over the bay. Continued up for a quick stop in at the nut house for some macadamia tasting and I got to drink the juice of a fresh coconut! Then eat the flesh mmmm... Lots of yum! The guy who cut it made it look so easy though, but that could also be due to the size of him, see how tall he is!!! I swear I haven't shrunk any! Anyway, we stopped just a little furthe up the road for lunch at kualoa ranch, which isn't really a ranch, just a restaurant on heaps of land. It is also incidently where a lot of
Rabbit Island
Because they bred rabbits on it... Jurassic park 1 was filmed, and yep you can see why!
With full bellies we continued up to the north tip of o'ahu with views of chinaman's hat and the turtle peninsula. Our next stop was at sunset beach, next to pipeline, where they can have up to 50foot waves! This however only occurs from November to April, at other times it is flat, so had I had the time I so would have jumped in with my newly acquired surfing skills and been able to say I surfed pipe, but unfortunately I just looked on longingly... Next time!
A little further down the north coast and we went past turtle beach, where the giant sea turtles usually come up to shore. We weren't able to stop, but we did see some turtles on the beach and they are massive! They can travel up to 60kph under the water too!
A bit further along we went past the gates for where they film lost, and then turned inland as the coast continued into military land. We stopped in at dole's pineapple plantation for a bit and grabbed pineapple juice and icecream which were consumed whilst looking at all
the different types of pineapple plants they had growing. There was an unbelievable amount of pineapple products there, and also, to my pleasure, a number of taro products too!
We then had to head for home as it was 5pm but again we had a great time travelling around and eating yummy fresh food.
On Monday we slept in a little, in that we were up at 8 instead of 630... When I did my surfing lesson they took photos of us, but they didn't get any of me standing, so they said to come back any time and they would do some shots for me... So that is what I did. I stood up every time and got some great shots taken and again had an absolute blast! Mum got to see me this time too which was good as I was able to bounce out of the water straight to her this time instead of going back to the hotel first hehe...
We went to ala moana shopping centre, which is very similar to warringah mall, while we waited for the photos to be ready. The photos turned out better than I thought they would,
and even shows me doing a hang loose sign back to mum on the beach while surfing hehe
Since then we have just bummed around, walked along the beach or just chilled out on our balcony watching the surf.
Tomorrow morning I am going to give surfing one last go before we pack up and fly out at 1115pm tomorrow night.
See you all soon!!!
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