Hawaii Vacation 2000

Chapter 1: Oahu

January 18: Arrival

When people come to Hawaii, Oahu in particular, they flock to world famous Waikiki Beach and usually stay in a hotel near there. There are plenty of them, and prices vary. We were more interested in getting away from the crowd, so we had made arrangements, based on the recommendation of a guidebook, to stay in an older hotel near Kaneohe Bay on the windward side. The trip there from Honolulu is barely a half hour, so it would be convenient enough.

We left the airport in our rental car, and immediately got stuck in a huge traffic snarl on the Nimitz Highway. Surface roads and the H1 interstate were little better. All of Honolulu was a big traffic jam. This was not exactly what we expected. So we lost some time, and didn't have time to much on the first day. We did stop at Ala Moana Park and walk out on the breakwater. It's very pretty, but we were tired and jetlagged, so we left Honolulu and its traffic, and headed through the Ko'olau mountain range to the windward side. By the time we found the hotel, and checked in, we didn't feel like sightseeing, so we had a fast food dinner, went to bed early and saved the fun for tomorrow. The hotel, Schrader's Windward Marine Resort, was a good choice, though out of the way and hard to find. It is on a spit of land that sticks out into Kaneohe Bay. In this picture we took of the view from the Lanai, you can see the steep dark-green cliffs (palis) of the Ko'olaus, across an arm of the bay. The top of the cliffs are shrouded in clouds.

January 19: Rain

As we rode across the harbor in a Navy launch, we could look back at the City of Pearl Harbor, and in this picture you can see the Bridge to Ford Island, and the rain in the sky.

Once inside the memorial, we could look down into the water where the ship lay with the remains of 1,177 seamen. The memorial is beautifully designed, with a wall at one end which is engraved with the name and rank of each man who died on Dec 7, 1941 aboard the Arizona. One gun turret sticks up out of the water, but there are others that lie below. Even after 59 years, a little oil still seeps out of the ship. Although not enough to do any damage to the environment, one can still make out the colors that the oil film makes on the surface of the water.

As we exited, we could see the battleship USS Missouri at the next mooring.

By now, the rain had eased enough for us to consider a hike. We drove through Waikiki, and found the traffic a little less difficult than before. We drove up to Diamond Head crater. To get there, you drive through a tunnel in the crater wall, and the parking lot is inside the crater. The climb to the top of the rim from there takes you up 560 feet and is an easy and popular climb. The final portion of the hike goes through some dark tunnels (bring a flashlight) and up through some fortifications that date back to 1908. It's an interesting and unusual hike. The views from the top are pretty spectacular. We captured an overview of Honolulu and Waikiki Beach in one direction, and a picture of the Diamond Head Lighthouse, looking almost straight down on it, in the other,

When we returned to the car, we drove east on the Kalanianole Highway. After passing Koko head, the coast becomes pretty wild, with the waves crashing on the rugged shore. It is not protected here like it is at Waikiki Beach. We stopped at one point to look around, but the wind was whipping, and the rain had started again, so that we just got back in and continued on. The highway goes by the eastern point of Oahu (Makapuu Point) but we were not able to hike to the lighthouse overlook because of the weather.

We decided to continue driving counterclockwise and proceeded up along the windward shore, past Kailua, Kaneohe, our hotel, Kaawa and Hauula. We did so without much of a break in the weather. Near Laie we had the opportunity to take a side road out to the shore, and look around. There was a very interesting long rock with a big hole in the middle. It was out in the surf, getting blasted by the waves. We also took this picture of the a portion of the coast we had just driven. It was all beautiful, despite the dreadful weather.

We weren't going to go for a hike in this weather, so we took the opportunity to continue north and east towards Waimea Bay, which is immortalized in a surfing song by the Beach Boys. We had such wild winds, that we were hoping to see some of those famed 30 foot waves. We did not, to our disappointment, but we did see some expert surfers in waves about 8 or 10 feet high.

It was almost dark by now, so we drove back the way we came. We stopped for Dinner at a well-known fancy restaurant named the "Crouching Lion Inn." At this point, the rain had returned with a vengeance and it was dark, so there was no point in taking any pictures. We ate in front of a huge stone fireplace and listened to and watched the rain come down in buckets. Dinner was great!

January 20: More Rain

OK, so we weren't going to do much hiking in this, but we could still see interesting things. We were just going to have to go indoors to avoid this problem with the rain. We headed for Honolulu, where the rain might be a little less severe, and parked downtown, near the Iolani Palace. This is a famous palace, built from 1879 to 1882 to serve as the official residence of King Kalakua. Museum tours are available, so we quickly made arrangements on the next available one.

While waiting for the tour, the weather cleared some, and we took these pictures of the Palace and Gate. We also had time to tour the State House, State Library, and Hall of Justice. There is a famous statue of King Kamehameha I in front of this hall.

The original statue was lost in a shipwreck, and this is the replacement. We enlarged this picture to show just the statue, so that you can see a better view.

When it was time for the tour, the rain began again, but we went inside so we didn't let it bother us. The Palace is absolute magnificent. It served as the official residence of Kalakua and his sister and successor, Queen Liliuokalani until the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy in 1893. That's a short period, but then it served as a government building for many years. It even became the State Capitol in 1957 when Hawaii achieved statehood, and only went out of service when the new capitol building was built. Since then, people dedicated to its restoration have formed a non-profit organization and have been collecting furniture and restoring the palace. The process is not complete, but the tour showed that a great deal had already been accomplished. Unfortunately for the purposes of this web site, they did not allow us to take any pictures inside.

After the tour, the weather was nicer, so we went down to Waikiki Beach and walked along the beach, marveling at the large number of people who had come out to lay on the beach at this break in the weather. We walked out on a breakwater, and found some interesting life there. While on the beach, we took a picture of Diamond Head, across the bay. This is one of the most recognizable features of Hawaii.

We walked out on several breakwaters, and found some interesting wildlife. There were black crabs that scurried away at our approach, and in the water we found a number of very long blue fish, but we didn't know exactly what they were. We managed to get pictures of both of these. We also found a Red-Crested cardinal, and took its picture too. This bird was scavenging food dropped by humans in the park. It is an introduced species, also known as a Brazilian Cardinal.

Afterwards, we returned to the car, and Steffi took a picture of Steve in front of a Banyan Tree nearby.

Since the weather was looking better now, we retraced our route out to Makapuu Point, and parked by the road at the gated drive that goes up to the lookout. This does not look like it is for public access, but the guidebook assured us that it was OK, there was no "No trespassing" sign, and there were five or six other vehicles parked nearby, so we went around the gate and followed this hike up the hill.

Makapuu Lighthouse Overlook trail is not a challenging hike, and in short order we were high above the Pacific. The visibility was now far better than yesterday, when we drove right past this hike. We were pretty sure that we could make out the Island of Molokai across the channel almost 30 miles away to the East. We took two pictures. The best view of the lighthouse was on our way up to the overlook. The second picture, from the overlook itself, is looking more down onto the light from above.

While we were there, enjoying the great view of the Pacific all around us, a big helicopter flew by. We took a picture of it too, but we're not sure why. We guess maybe because it was so unexpected.

After that hike, we went back to Honolulu and drove up the scenic Tantalus Drive. This road connects at the top ot Round Top Drive, which we followed back down. At the highest point on this drive you normally get a commanding view of Honolulu, but the weather was socking in again, so we saw a lot of mist, instead. The drive was fun, but no good picture opportunities presented themselves. We had a Mexican dinner in Waikiki, and went back to our hotel.

We had only allowed for three days on Oahu, so the next morning we had a few hours to drive around, but not enough time or good weather to do anything major, or take any pictures, before turning in our rental car and getting on an Inter-island flight to Kailua-Kona on Hawaii.

This story continues with our trip to the big island in the next chapter.

[Intro] [Oahu] [Volcano] [Hawaii] [Maui] [Kauai 1] [Kauai 2] [Index]