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| at Dole Pineapple Plantation |
A low key breakfast today, Starbucks for coffee and bacon and egg croissants before heading off for our tour around the north and north-east shore of Oahu.
My Gypsy Guide App was put to work again today and we found it just as useful as it had been on Maui. As we passed Pearl Harbour it had some interesting infornation for us about the events of December 1941 but just a taster, we’l; be heading to pearl for all the details on Monday.
Our first stop for the day was the Dole Pineapple Plantation. Dole Pineapple has been an American staple for many many years but has only recently found it’s way onto supermarket shelves in Australia. The plantation has a maze, a plantation train tour as well as an enormous shop selling pineapple-everything! We watched a demonstration of the correct way to select a ripe pineapple and how to cut it and enjoyed some of the free samples on offer before dodging ahead of the tour buses to continue our Oahu tour.
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| At Waimea bay |
Not far down the road we reached the little town of Haliewa, an old-fashioned Hawaiian town with many galleries and quaint stores. The traffic was not old-fashioned though and it was a slow crawl through the town. Not far north of Haliewa we arrived at the first of Oahu’s famous surfing beaches, Waimea Bay.
It’s a gorgeous beach in a horseshoe bay and there were lots of people enjoying the beautiful day, The surf was good but not the huge swells that can roll in here on some days of the winter season. Further down the road we stopped at the famous Banzai Pipeline beach and the surf here was significantly more exciting.
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| Surfing the Banzai Pipeline |
The Billabong Pipe Masters competition starts here on Monday but they already had their judging stands set up and ready to go. The “No swimming” and “Dangerous Surf break” signs were on display and it was fascinating to watch the experts getting some practice in before the big competition.
We also drove past Sunset Beach but had no chance of parking there because today is the last day of the Van’s Surfing World Cup and every parking spot was occupied for miles in both directions.
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| Giovani’s Shrimp Scampi – Yumm! |
It wasn’t long before we drove around the northern most tip of Oahu and switched from the “North Shore” to the Windward Coast. Around the little town of Kahuku there were a succession of gourmet delights on offer in the form of Shrimp Trucks. These low key locations serve delicious, fresh plates of fried shrimp to thousands of locals and tourists every day – the locals have their favourites and we decided to stop at “Giovanni’s Original White Shrimp” that has been dishing up plates of luscious garlic shrimp since 1953!
The smell drew us in and the shrimp lived up to the smell! Talk about finger licking good! The shrimp is served with shells on so its a messy business to eat but well worth the effort – luckily they give you lots of napkins and have a makeshift sink with soap to clean up afterwards.
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| Neil looking for the owner of the damaged drone |
The drive down the windward coast was so pretty, with beautiful beaches lining the road to the left and green, crinkly mountains rising up to the right. We stopped in at a park to view the “Chinaman’s Hat” island with the backdrop of the Kualoa mountains. While we snapped a few photos we stumbled across a sadly-dented, damaged, small drone aircraft lying on the ground with it’s GoPro camera still attached. The drone was sill twitching so we could tell that someone was trying to control it and sure enough, we soon spotted a couple running along looking for their equipment. Neil and I have toyed with the idea of purchasing a drone to go with his Go Pro but they just seem too impractical and I’m afraid this episode put the nail in the coffin of that idea.
Not long down the road we turned inland to visit the tranquil and serene Byodo-In Temple. This beautiful Buddhist Temple was built in 1968 to commemorate the 100 year anniversary of the first Japanese immigrants to Hawaii. It is set in the “Valley of the Temples” which is actually a huge lawn cemetery in a lush green valley.As you enter the temple you’re encouraged to ring the enormous bronze bell to help create an atmosphere of tranquility for meditation. Most people get one big “dong” out of the bell but Neil got a little carried away and the huge wooden log called the “shu-moku” struck the bell 3 times after he hefted it! That was a little TOO much tranquility!
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| Ringing the bell |
The afternoon was growing late when we took the Pali road up over the central mountain between Windward City and Honolulu. We made a brief stop at the VERY windy Pali lookout for our last view of the winy side before wining back down into Honolulu… and Honolulu traffic!
Neil ( yes, Neil!) suggested we make one more stop at Walmart to pick up a couple of things before heading back to our hotel. We find that our electrical appliances ( his shaver and my hair straightener) really struggle with the pitiful American voltage so we’d decided to indulge ourselves with couple of American appliances to use on our (frequent!) visits to the USA.
While there we also stocked up on Hot Tamales, delicious cinnamon candies that are an all-time favourite of mine. almost impossible to get in Australia.
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| Concentrating on the touchdown |
We arrived back at our hotel just in time to go down to the beach and take in the glorious sunset. What a stunning sight! I must admit Waikiki is growing on me – I just neeed time to acclimatise to the different pace I think.
After the sun went bye-bye we grabbed a couple of stools at the pool-side bar and ordered a beer and a Mai-Tai. College football was playing on the TV screens so Neil gave me a quick lesson in the rules of Grid-Iron. Poor Wisconsin were being slaughtered by Ohio State, it was a blood bath. They also showed some of the highlights of the surfing competiion and we enjoyed the band playing Hawaiian favourites and Christmas tunes for the bar patrons.
Tomorrow we’re planning to take a short drive around the southern tip of Oahu an hopefully enjoy some time on the beach. Aloha!
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| The sun goes down on another beautiful Hawaiian day |