Sightseeing Day On Oahu

---

Aloha for the next edition from us.

Firstly we have seen photos and heard reports of the diabolical weather many of you are getting in NZ at the moment from Tropical Cyclone Hale. Trust that it isn’t going to be too ongoing but take care out there.

Have to report that we are not having anything but bright blue sunny days over here….not too hot but just right for us……so we picked the right time to be on holiday and away from home again.

Today was a sightseeing day…all day. Decided to do the ‘circle Island’ drive and take in the wonderful variations of countryside and scenery that Oahu has to offer. Will include a few photos to show you some of them.

Started by heading out towards the East and Haunama Bay area where we are going to spend tomorrow snorkeling and swimming. We’ve paid an outfit to ‘park and ride’ us from a nearby shopping centre to the Bay as they also will rent us all the gear we need as part of their package…..so much easier as parking at H Bay can be really hit and miss as we discovered last time we tried to go there in 2014. Thought I better do a recce to make sure we knew where we had to go to meet up with the company and pick up the gear and the bus. Sorted that out, after making a phone call to make sure we had the right place.

Then headed off further East and then North on the trip. I’ll include a photo of a map of Oahu so you can hopefully see where we went.

We stopped at various lookouts and scenic parking places along the way for Joy to take some photos and generally just took in the varied and changing landscapes as we drove. Lots of traffic on the road that was a portent of things to come.

Stopped at a place towards the northern end of the east coast in a town called Laie where there is an incredible feature just off the coast….a rocky outcrop with a large hole through the centre of it that was formed over the years by the pounding of the sea…photo attached.

We eventually go to the northern end of the island where all the big surf beaches are located….Sunset and the Banzai Pipeline to name a couple and stopped a few times to take in the huge waves. Here’s where the place just got crazy. We have no idea where all the people came from but every outlook vantage point and car park was hugely over-crowded with people just watching the waves pound the beaches. Very few surfers as they obviously weren’t brave enough (apart from at Waimea Bay where the surf was a little quieter) so nothing really to see except the sea!!! There were literally 10s of thousands packed everywhere. We didn’t hang around this area long as no where to park most of the time.

We drove into a quaint old town that we discovered on our 2014 trip here called Heleiwa that is on the north west coast and had lunch and again the place was packed to the gunnels.

We then headed back towards Honolulu through the middle of the island, stopping for a pineapple ice cream at the Dole Pineapple Plantation that we’ve also been to a few times in the past and also picked up another ‘pin’ for g’daughter Stephanie…..if you get to read this Steph, grandma has picked up a few over here for your collection.

Fairly ho-hum drive from there until we got about 10 miles from the hotel on the freeway where we again hit the peak traffic and crawled our way along at 0 – 5mph for about 45 minutes….would normally take about 10 minutes….BORING….. 5 lanes each way just bottle necked!!!!!

Back at the hotel around 5pm and crashing this epistle out before heading out for dinner.

We’re both looking forward to a day at the beach tomorrow, snorkeling etc. so should be fun!!!

Stay dry everyone…hopefully Hale will pass quickly, although I see they have closed our golf course for a few days because it is flooded out so things must be fairly bad.

Mahalo until next time.

---

Photos

The Halona Blowhole
Fairly take compared with the one we saw on Maui but the sea wasn't very big here. It would be spectacular at high tide with a big sea running

Chinaman's Hat
That's what it is called for obvious reasons

Big Seas at Pupukea Beach
This is in the same area as Sunset Beach and the Banzai Pipeline