The Grand Island Bus Tour

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Today we went on a bus tour around the entire island of Oahu.

We started by travelling north straight up through the centre of the island and making a stop by the Dole Plantation - where all the Dole pineapples and other such things come from. We then motered up to the North Shore beaches of Oahu where all the big surf is. The beaches looked fantastic, golden sand - nice clean waves..

We then went to the "Polynesian Culture Centre" where we went on a canoe ride and saw the culture of all the various polynesian cultures, including Aotearoa which for some reason they call "Aotearoa-Maori".

My favourite part of the bus tour however was the east side of the island which is on the "rainforrest" side of the mountains. Absolutely amazing scenery - quite gobsmacking some of the sites, alot of which a camera couldn't do justice.

We also went to a macadamia place where we got free macadamia nut samples and free coffee - yum, we bought a bag for our travels.

Our nutty bus driver tour guide man was from Italy who married a Hawaiian girl and has been living here for the past 32 years.. On the trip I picked up a few interesting pieces of information from him:

* Honolulu University costs around $4000 a year if you are a local, or $7000 if you are out of state. This is pretty cheap in comparison to mainland universities which cost $20,000+ but is still a good university with a medical school and law school etc.

* There are 900,000 people on Oahu, and there are 1,270,000 people all up on all of the Hawaiian islands.

* What do you think the most common fruit is? Well, its not an apple, not an orange, its a ... Mango - believe it or not. Something to do with people in Africa and China eating them. The second most common is a Banana.

* "Lays" (the flowers that they put around your neck) can be $20-$30 each and are actually imported from Thailand since Hawaii needs so many millions of flowers for these than they could possibly grow themselves.

* Bill boards have been banned on the island - it is true, you won't see a single bill board anywhere, and its amazing the difference it makes - everywhere on the island just looks really tidy.

* There is a private island that about 250 - 300 pure 100% Hawaiians live on, the only way you can go there is by invite. But this is pretty rare, even the governor was declined an invitation.


Impressions - the place is awesome. Love it.

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Photos

Hanauma Bay Park
The place to snorkel