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Published: March 25th 2007
We had a 6 day stop over in Hawaii before heading to New Zealand, and here's what we got up to. A mandatory few days had to be spent in Waikiki, which is nice, but is a very built up resort. The beaches were ok, but busy and swimming wasn't really a good idea because of the razor sharp rocks 10 feet in! After breakfast on the beach, we saw the St Patricks day parades through the centre of town. This was very surreal, as all the people were blatantly Polynesian and they were making a way bigger deal of it than we do at home! it was a great celebration none the less. Rather than spending the afternoon drinking Guinness on the beach we decided it would be better time spent walking up the Diamond Head crater, an extinct volcano from which you can get a great view over all of Waikiki, its hotels, surrounding countryside and coastline. When we made it back we celebrated the whole adventure with a keg of free beer (with 15 others) back at the hostel.
Despite the frivolity of the night before, we escaped hangover free and caught the bus east to
the windward coast and Kailua bay where we rented a tandem sea kayak and paddled out over turtle infested waters to a small island which is a bird sanctuary, then on to a totally tropical beach, before paddling back just when it started to rain!
The next day saw us head to the north coast of Oahu where the big surf is kept! We stayed in a horrible, dirty, bug infested beach bungalow in Wa'ilea. It was however a great location to check out the famous beaches called Pipeline and Sunset beach, where all the surf competitions are held. The waves were enormous about two stories high, and very impressive. We hired bikes and cycled to the closest town called Ha'ilea and had a shave ice from the famous Matsumoto's!
After our trip to the north shore we headed back to Waikiki early in the morning to visit the memorial exhibition at Pearl Harbour, which was both free and very interesting! This involved a short film about the background and the results of the attack on Pearl Harbour and a trip out by boat to the sunken wreck of the SS Arizona. Next morning we headed off to
the airport to catch our plane to Christchurch in New Zealand.
We arrived here after a horrible flight where we were only fed once in more than 17 hours! Anyway, since we've been here everything has been great! Christchurch is a really nice city, really laid back and HOT! We've just bought our camper van and we're about to embark on our grand New Zealand adventure! Watch out pictures to follow!
Take it e z!
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Anne
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Beautiful photos
Really like your photos of Hawaii. The place looks really tropical and lovely! Hope you are both enjoying New Zealand. Looking forward to more photos and news. XX