Day-2 – Traveling around Oahu

We have an 8:00am meeting with the tour director to go over the itinerary for the trip.  We will also decide which of the offered extra excursions we will do.  But, before that I was out on the balcony with a coffee and this view. 

We cannot see the sun rise since it is behind and to the right of us.  Looking east-north-east what a view we have of the city. 

After another coffee and a couple of hours, we are done with the meeting and head over to the Alamo car rental to get a car.  Today we will drive around a see what we will see in the amount of time we have left of the day or until we get tired, whichever comes first.  Driving beneath Diamond Head, we stopped on the side of the road by the Diamond Head Lighthouse where we see surfers in crystal clear waters.

There are some very nice flowers that grow on the trees here that they use for the flower leis.  Not many leaves on the trees to go along with the flowers.

Here is Carmen standing at the lookout along the coast.  Such a gorgeous day and we are on our way to Diamond Head. 

We took a trail that looked like it would lead us to the lighthouse.  It didn’t.  We were able to get some pictures without very much obstruction anyway. 

The Lighthouse is on privately owned land now and we could not go up to it because of the locked gates.  I did take several pictures and this one is from looking through the gate. 

Heading back to the car, one of the Hawaii Duck boats drove by.  I wonder where and what water they go into? 

Wouldn’t you know it we were looking the wrong way and passed our turn to Diamond Head and by the time we figured we passed it and turned around we happened on a film crew, or the police providing security for the filming.  He couldn’t tell us what movie, but if we watched Hawaii 5-0 we might see the results.  Back the way we came we find the turn off and finally make it through the tunnel and into Diamond Head Monument.  This is from inside the Diamond Head caldera looking towards the ocean.  The peak on the left has a bunker on it and the peak on the right is where we will hike.

We begin our hike up the .8 mile trail to the Le’ahi Summit which is at 761 feet above sea level.  In the section with the switchbacks, we have this view looking over the rim of the caldera.  Look at the street that goes straight up the hill.  Good thing they do not have snow here.

The hike consists of rocky trail, tunnel and stairs.  The stairs are a killer, over 300 of them, with one fairly steep section having 75 steps.  Now I know that a 500-700 foot climb is not much, but it is hot today with temperatures in the mid 80’s and no clouds to cool things off.  We stop along the switchbacks to get a picture or two of some of the local scenery.

Here you can still see a couple of the old bunkers and lookout positions from WWII along the top ridge of the Diamond Head crater.  Look at the zigzagging trail going up to the tallest bunker.  Now that would be a brutal hike. 

We reach the tunnel along our hike and Carmen is posing as she goes in.  The lady on the left was trying to get out of the picture by moving directly into it.  Oh well, can’t always expect clean pictures.

Almost at the top we have great views of the ocean and the Diamond Head Lighthouse.  From here we can see the full grounds and the lighthouse itself.  The waters are so clear you can see the coral reef and the sandy breaks.

At the very top is the observation station and the view from here is spectacular.  We can see Waikiki Beach and all of the hotels.  It is truly a fantastic sight.  You can even see the Punchbowl in the background.

I head back down and before going far we have a clear view north of our location.  You can see the Diamond Head caldera and the entrance tunnel in the center.  We will follow the road along the coast and be near the two hills in the upper right.

While waiting for Carmen to come down from the very top observation platform, I get a picture of her as she half way down this section of stairs.  She is at the bottom stair landing unaware that I am taking her picture.

Back on the bottom and while we take a breather, after trying several times to get a picture of this bird with the red head we finally get one shot.  Of course if you have seen any of our blogs I will usually have pictures of birds, flowers and lizards (not sure about lizards in Hawaii though).

Through the tunnel as we leave Diamond Head to continue our trip around the island.

Our next stop is at Hummonu Bay.  This is where Elvis filmed the opening scenes in the Movie “Blue Hawaii”; it is also a great place to snorkel, but not for us today we are continuing our trek around the island. 

Back on the coastal road, we stopped at one of the overlooks with the hope to see some wave action crashing on the rocks.  Only we are too busy looking at whales in the distance we forget to look for any of the crashing waves on the cliffs.  There were several momma whales with their new young making regular blowing spouts.  I got this picture of a whale tail, but I have my medium zoom on the camera and the whales are a good way out.

So, I went back to the car to change to my longer lens and just after getting the lens on and looking for a whale to roll or flip its tail I saw this whale breech and come jumping out of the water.  Again, this whale is over a mile away.

We were here in the right place and at the right time and I was lucky to be looking in the right direction when I saw it and to get any picture of the breech at all was very lucky.  As I continued to shoot, I got this second picture just before it was back under water.  So exciting. 

While we were watching for more whales to breech, this whale was standing on its head under water with its tail out of the water.  It stayed like that for about a minute.  We hope that when we do the whale watch on Maui we see these same actions, only closer to our boat.

It would be nice to stay here longer, but we still have much to see and do, so we are back on the road.  Speaking of the road, this is where we are headed.  This view reminds me of Cabot Trail on the west end of Cape Breton in Nova Scotia.  You can see a waterspout in the bottom of the picture.

At this same location is this small inlet to a beach.  That beach was used in the 1953 movie “From Here to Eternity” with Burt Lancaster when he was on the beach kissing the girl (Deborah Kerr I think). 

Anyway, we are back driving along the ocean drive and stop at the Makapuu Overlook which looks out over the bay to Mānana Island nicknamed “Rabbit Island”.  Looking from this angle you can clearly see why it got its name. 

Looking north again, you can see the direction we are headed.  That is Waimanalo Beach and the Sea Life Park Hawaii which we are not going to stop at.

Here Carmen is standing in front of the mountains used by parasailers to sail along this section of the island.  

Speaking of people parasailing, here is one now.  He was playing with the winds coming between this high cliff and the mountains. 

It is getting late and we stopped in Waimanalo Beach to have something to eat.  Someone mentioned about a place called Keneke’s Roadside BBQ grill and we decided to stop and try it out.  We both ordered food, Carmen the teriyaki chicken and I got the fish and chips.  Both were really great, but they were so large we could have ordered only one meal.  We continued along the Kalanianaole Highway (RT 72) until we came to RT 61 back to Honolulu where we stopped at an overlook.

While on the island we have seen many free range chickens and roosters.  Well not free range as you would normally think; they are not on a farm but free.  These are freed chickens and roosters and the roam anywhere they want.  There is no law to prohibit anyone from catching and eating them, people just don’t.  The roosters have great colors on them.

As we approach Honolulu we stopped at another overlook.  This one looked over a cemetery and this interesting old Pagoda. 

It is almost sundown by the time we get to Waikiki and in order to get a picture of the sunset I pulled into the Kewalo Basin Harbor.  We got there just as the sun was setting and even though there was a seawall for the harbor the view was still nice.

By the time we returned the car and had something to eat, we returned to our room and I lwas able to get this picture of Waikiki at night.  Tomorrow we are headed to Pearl Harbor and the Arizona Memorial.