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Waikiki
The main tourist spot on Oahu After the briefest of stays in Australia we are back on another night flight to Hawaii, Honolulu to be more precise. Unbelievably we set off at 5.50pm, fly for 9 hours and arrive at 7am on the same day, this has to be our longest day ever. We are only on the Island for 3 days and don’t really want to waste any of our time, plus we are unable to book into our room until 3pm. We rent a jeep at the airport and make our way to Waikiki Beach where we are staying and after a quick stop to check in our bags we head off to the North Shore of the Island to see the huge waves and hopefully watch some serious big wave surfing.
The drive up to the North is once again stunning, you have the Koolua range of volcanic mountains to the left of you, all of which are now extinct and the superb Pacific Ocean on the right. There are numerous vantage points that need checking out as you go, the sight of the sea bashing the rocks and the various colours given off as they do so is something else. As we
Makapuu Point
Clear blue sea - just like skeggie... eventually arrive at the North Shore, the giant waves we were expecting did not materialise, apparently we are 5 months too late, winter is the time for 50ft + waves, that’s planning for you. Making our way back down to the South of the Island we take the country route which divides the 2 main mountain ranges on the Island, and this is where the Dole pineapple plantation can be found, the largest producer of pineapples in the world, so big you can ride a train through their fields. It was back to the hotel after this, finishing the day with a nice meal at a nearby Mexican.
Although we had been awake almost 36 hours the previous day, I was wide awake at 5am so decided to get up and watch the sun rise with a cup of starbucks. Making my way to the coffee shop I was approached by a young lady who I thought was a bit of a late night reveller. She stopped to ask who I was and where I was from, and would I like some fun back at my room (I swear this is not made up), ‘we could do’ I said
Brian the 'surfer dude...'
or rather a 'surfer don't'... ‘but I'm not sure my wife would be over the moon about it.’ ‘Don’t worry hun, I know places…’ she said. ‘Look, I'm just popping out for a coffee at Starbucks and only have $20 in my pocket.’ She replies ‘don’t worry, I have change’ - (ok -that last bit was made up). Moving on, I could not believe the amount of people already on the beach, there was a surfing competition day for disabled people taking place. After watching for a few hours and thinking, this can't be that difficult, it rather inspired me to give the surfing thing a go. After waking up Karen we now head off to the nearest surf shop to hire a board, the guy serving could obviously see we were seasoned pros and dragged out the biggest, most smashed up board he had. Now these surfer dudes make it look so easy just carrying the things, well I was not so impressive ending up with it on my head and knocking out anyone who managed to get in my way. If getting the board to the sea was difficult, actually making it go in a straight line was impossible. After 60 minutes of
Waikiki Beach
Lovely beach but gets very busy, there are quieter beaches at the north of the island trying and repeatedly being thrown off, I decided to give up for a while as I could see Karen in stitches on the beach and did not want her rupturing her spleen. I gave it another couple of goes but after suffering surfers nipple, (please boys and girls make sure you keep a top on when swimming with a board) I decided to give up, I was now officially named ‘Surfer Don’t.’ Hats off to the competitors, you were superb. We stayed on the beach all day
and ended up talking to a lovely couple, Clayton and Amber before making our way back to the hotel.
After our evening meal we decide to finish the night off with a couple of drinks on one of the streets which was around 3 blocks back from the sea front. Finding a nice bar with good music and perfect seats overlooking the main road we started our now favourite hobby of people watching. One thing very noticeable was that the same people seemed to be walking up and down the street, mainly little groups of 4 or 5. Each group had there own identity, some wore t-shirts big enough to cover a
Coastal Drive
On the east side of the island king size bed, others wore jeans big enough to fit Jo Brand even though they had size zero waists but the weirdest were the guys who wore 1960's dresses and doc martins. Also on parade were the Military and Naval Police, we were certain this was a bit of a dodgy place, and as sure eggs are eggs it kicked off directly over the road from us, it was like watching our own episode of Cops. Within minutes of the little fracas there were 3 police cars on scene, 6 MP's and another 6 Naval Police, ironically it was the security guard of a hotel that rugby tackled one of the villains on the main road and apprehended him while the cops managed to get their bums in gear. To further endorse our feelings for the area we were in, on our way back to the hotel we were offered ice, heroin and weed as well as watching numerous hookers try to pick up clients. Anyone visiting Waikiki please don’t go too far back off the sea front.
Although the dangers of the sun in Hawaii had been pointed out to us on numerous occasions, we were seasoned tanners
Pearl Harbour
You can visit the memorial of the USS Arizona which remains beneath the sea by now so I did not feel the need for any lotions even though Karen kept telling me to put some on. Big mistake - huge mistake in fact, during the night I was to suffer severe heat stroke. I haven’t felt so bad for a long time, and we were flying today. After checking out of the hotel I somehow manage to drive us to Pearl Harbour, however I did not manage to make it out of the car so Karen had a wander round while I caught 40 winks. It was off to the airport after this to catch our 6 hour flight to vegas, as soon as we got there I fell asleep for 3 hours much to Karen’s amusement - Hawaii airport is not the most thrilling we’ve been to. Oahu on the other hand is a lovely island and we would recommend coming here, with maybe a trip or two to some of the other Hawaiian Islands as they all have something different to offer.
It’s off to Vegas now where we are staying at the Hooters Hotel, not sure if I told you that before - does life get any better? Oh and
Coastal Drive...again
Lovely views all around the island we are meeting up with Karen’s parents for a fortnight. Suppose 2 out of 3 aint bad …. just kidding Richard and Christine, we love you really. Oh and by the way, bring plenty of money with you as your daughter has spent most of mine…
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Andy V
non-member comment
Vegas or bust!
Have a great time in Vegas both, be careful on the tables and remeber the 28-32 Roulette box Bri- cant go wrong!