Advertisement
North Shore - we decided to do a guided tour of the north shore as we did not know the best beaches etc, so booked a japanese guy doing tours of around 8 people. We went from Waikiki through Honolulu and past Pearl Harbour (where all the americans were headed for), and up through the middle of the island to our first stop - the Dole plantation Pineapple farm, lots of pineapples of all shapes and sizes, and a shop to cater for all manner of pineapple paraphernalia, a quick stop is enough unless you go into the huge maze and get lost !
Onto the beaches, via Haleiwa (back to there later) so we had a choice of the main beaches - Sunset beach,Rocky PT,Banzai pipeline,Shark's cove,Pupukea beach,Three table,Waimea Bay,Chun's reef,Laniakea. - All of the people on the tour wanted to do some snorkelling and as it was a big wave kind of day we all went to a small protected inlet where there were lots of fish - and there were ! A great area for families as the water never got more than 4 or 5 feet deep, and sooooo many fish.
After the snorkelling we
Dole plantation
Pretty pineapplesall got picked up and went over to Turtle bay which is a protected area where the huge sea turtles come into for an afternoon rest - and they did ! we sat and watched as they battled their way in through the choppy sea whilst eating garlic shrimp from Giovanni's shrimp wagon ( famous in those parts + rightly so, very yummy).
Next was a chance to walk through Haleiwa town which is very nice and quaint - quite a contrast to Waikiki, and well worth the wander through to do some shopping - black pearls (Ha Harrr!), funky surf clothes (saw a chap with a pet piglet in a shop, I'm not quite so sure about that one - he seemed very fond of it 😉. And some great food, lunch at Kua'aina burger - probably the biggest burger I have ever eaten with a few small extras of a whole avocado and some awesome fries (all for about $6)- absoloutely delicious, would recommend to anyone. Didn't get chance to try matsumoto's shave ice as the queue was very long.
All in all a great day out, we would really recommend it to all as a very interesting
Dole 3
A long way from everywhere! day and also relaxing on the beach, and great snorkelling.
Other interesting places we visited, Bishop museum - excellent for the kids, a great planetarium with very chatty and knowledgeable scientists, and also a fun science section with a working volcano and remote control submersibles with cameras - Joe and Emi really enjoyed this area.
We also did the waikiki aquarium - great for getting indoors out of the sun for a while ! And the most colourful fish and giant clams ! And water dragons too !
The Honolulu zoo is just around the corner too in Waikiki and was excellent, very large enclosures and natural environments - the savanna area was great, as was the Keiki (kids) zoo for petting and touching. The kids loved the Komodo dragon (huge !), and the chimp enclusure - oh and the shaved ice (they made me put that in).
I must say that the huge shopping centres are great for getting out of the mid-day sun and are all airconditioned, as are the restaurants - we (ok I )could not resist the lure of eating at Bubba Gump shrimp (from the film Forrest Gump) - great fun and the
NorthShore1
Northshore beach waiting staff had quizzes of film or island trivia to keep us entertained.
We were in Oahu for 7 days and filled every day, and we did not even get to all of the island, never mind the other outstandingly beautiful islands so I think we have left plenty for us to do on our next visit.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.043s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 8; qc: 26; dbt: 0.0237s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1mb
Stef and Andy
non-member comment
Still no Babes?
We are interested in the swimsuits...purely from an engineering point of view.