North shore tour

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Today we took a North Shore tour from our youth hostel. Cost per person is $25- and this compared very favourably to the prices of $70-$100- which the tour touts were suggesting as the bargain price along Waikiki.


But we could have listened to a presentation only 90minutes long from these super salesmen and then the price magically was reduced to $20-. These presentations were going to be about an all in one "wunderbar" on line travel facility, which of course we would have no obligation to buy off. Hate hate hate these.

The North shore trip today was with Jessie our driver, who works as a Jack of all trades at the hostel, currently he is remodelling the bathrooms as well as being a tour driver as needed. It took us from Waikiki up north as far as sunset beach, down towards Laie which is a Mormon town complete with university and cultural centre, and turned back towards Honolulu when we came through the town of Kaneohe. Martin me and 12 young ladies, hailing from Chile, Germany, Korea, France, and Quebec piled on the mini bus.

We drove out past some very dry hills, past the Schofield barracks and Wheeler airforce base into the agricultural areas and past the Dole Plantation which is a major pineapple growing facility. Huge tourism trap with rides for kids, shops and food outlets. We stopped at the Wailua Coffee plantation, again more shops, more food and more things to buy. Next stop was Turtle beach where huge Honu turtles were laying right up in the shallows feeding off the bright green algae on the rocks. They are about 1 metre across, quite large. They don't nest there, just come to feed. You have to keep 6 ft away from them.

Waimea bay was our swim stop. There is a huge rock which people of course jump off, lots of sand and warm clear water with loads of shoals of fish to look at if you want to snorkel. This is the bay where in the winter months they do the major surfing competitions, 8 metres shore break waves, today it was like a mill pond. Surfing is in the winter months with the season going from September to March.

Next stop was a picnic on the shores of Banzai Pipeline beach, THE beach where the perfect tube waves occur and all the competitions end here. We had grabbed some food at the local food store so sat and ate at the picnic table and admired the view. All around the island are thousands of free roaming chickens and wild cats, a legacy brought here by white man. The chickens can be seen roaming every where, scrawny looking things. They were busy feeding off the hundreds of nuts lying under the trees.

The principal religion on the island is catholic but the Mormons have a huge prescence particularly in the north. The indigenous ways are coming back along with the language, and pride in being a local, but it is only 3% Hawaii, and over 60% Asian, most people are a big mix. The USA will never give this place up, it is such a strategic piece of real estate in terms of defence and power projection. Hawaii's main source of $ is tourism, agriculture is there but not a major earner. Hawaii's ability to stand alone and govern alone would be interesting to see, but unlikely to ever occur.

Our next stop was a culinary one where dined on Giovanni's famous garlic shrimps, sold out of a bus in a siding with all things touristy added on. Garlic shrimps are a huge thing here, and for $13- Martin got 10 shrimps, and rice in a tasty garlic sauce. The wandering chooks sure loved the rice that Martin didn't eat. I had a funnel cake. In modern day America, they associate funnel cakes with the Pennsylvania Dutch, a group of mostly German speaking immigrants who came to Pennsylvania during the 17th and 18th centuries. The “Dutch” part of Pennsylvania Dutch is thought to have come from the German word “Deutsch.” They are made from pancake batter drizzled into hot fat and fried and topped with icing sugar!


From here we drove to a point with wonderful rock formation and great fishing if you had the chance, and then drove on around the coastline past where they filmed Jurassic park which is at Kualoa and Kahana Valley state park. Loads of volcanic plugs and sheer cliffs.
Arrived back into Honolulu with six lanes of peak hour traffic. Over 1.5 million live in Honolulu with another 1 million tourists, there is a good bus system that takes you all around the island for $2-50 a trip but cars are the major means of transport.

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