Saturday we made a stop at Sandy Beach, which is just north of the Halona Blowhole. The beach was big and sandy (surprise!), but the current and waves were a big strong. There were several surfers and bodyboarders in the water, but that was about it.
Sandy Beach
After Sandy Beach, we headed up to Kailua Beach. We've been here a few times and it's gorgeous, but we'd never actually laid out and enjoyed the beach or gone swimming. Kailua is famous for having a couple islands off the coast and we saw that there were actually people out on one of them. It didn't seem that far so we thought we would try to just swim out there. We got about halfway before we realized that all those people got out there by kayaking. We ended up just turning around and swimming back. And it was exhausting. We thought about renting a kayak but it was $50 for 4 hours and that was just way too expensive for us. We just decided to relax on the beach and I ended up taking a nap. It was so nice!
Driving up the H3
View of Kaneohe from H3
Sunday was our last day exploring Oahu. We drove back up to the Windward side via the H3, which I still hadn't been on. There are some sweet tunnels and no exits until you get to the end. It was pretty cool. We went to Chinaman's Hat which is an island off of Kualoa Park. It's actually lava rock and got it's name because it looks like a Chinese peasant's hat. We read that you could basically walk there during low tide, and if you're in good condition you could climb to the top. We got there and it was low tide so we grabbed our swim shoes (the entire ocean floor is lined with sharp reef!) and snorkels and headed out. We walked about halfway and swam in the deeper parts, but we made it out just fine. I guess it's about 1/3 of a mile from the shore. We got there and began looking around for a good place to start climbing. It was pretty steep, so we headed around towards the ocean side. There's a small beach there that we read about with some cool caves. We found the beach and as soon as Jon said "It's so secluded here!" we found a naked guy trying to break open a coconut. I don't know if this guy lives there or was just hanging out for the day or what, but he looked like a cave man. Long, dread-locked hair and just laying out in the sun for all the world to see. It was hilariously strange, and ruined our opportunity to check out the beach. I wonder if he actually lives there though, there are only 3 coconut producing palm trees and I don't know what else he could eat. Fish maybe? I should have asked him. But he was naked and that would have been awkward.
We continued looking for a good spot to start climbing, but dang that thing is steep. We got about half-way up before we ran out of good trail and I was terrified I was going to slip and die. It was so scary. We were climbing through thorny plants and slippery rocks and I was grabbing onto branches and overgrown grass for dear life. I'm sad we didn't make it to the top, but I'm happy that I'm still alive. I'm sorry to say I don't have any pictures from the island, but I couldn't exactly take my camera with me. I also didn't come back with a coconut because I couldn't find any.
Getting back to the mainland (I guess that's what I should refer to Oahu as when I'm on an even smaller island?) was a lot more difficult. Tide had come in and raised the water level about 2-3 feet so we could no longer touch the bottom and the waves were getting bigger. I'd swim so hard and barely get anywhere. Then I'd get salt water up my nose or I'd swallow it and start choking. I had the snorkel and mask but I still managed to cough like a drowning maniac. It was scary and felt like it took forever for us to get back to dry land. It took us about 2 hours to get to the island, walk around, and get back. I don't know how long the swims took us, but it felt like we were gone for a lot longer than that. It was definitely a cool experience, and I'm really glad we made the trek out there. There weren't many people there so it's not something the average tourist does. Sadly, as we got back to the beach we saw people had made it to the top somehow.
View of Chinaman's Hat from Kualoa Park. Yes, we swam all the way out there and attempted to climb to the top of that.
After a nice picnic lunch at the park we drove down the to Valley of the Temples. This is a memorial at the foot of the Ko'olau Mountains where several Buddhist, Christian, and Shinto residents of Hawaii are buried (thanks Wikipedia). We also went to this temple that cost $3 to get into. Here is the description from Wikipedia: The park features the replica of a 12th. century Japanese Buddhist temple built in the late 1960s. Its name is Byodo-In Temple which translates to the Phoenix temple, because of the two majestic metal phoenixes along the top ends of the main temple. It is a recreation of the Buddhist temple in Uji, Japan. Inside the main part of the temple there is a 9-12 ft Buddha sitting on a gold leaf lotus. That part is wrong because the Buddha is actually more than 18 feet. It was so beautiful and ornate and awesome, man it was cool. We also saw several wild peacocks just hanging out and a black swan. And the gift shop had really cool stuff. I got a little gold Buddha that is supposed to chase away evil spirits.
Byodo-In Temple
Giant Buddha!
Look at that ceiling!
I was jealous of all the paper cranes.
Peacock! This was the only male peacock we saw. We saw several female and some babies too!
Black swan, which is apparently usually only found in Australia.
Jon and me in front of the temple.
The two phoenix birds on top of the temple.
Small waterfall
Memorial that I thought was pretty.
Awesome view or what?
I'm sad to say that my stay here in Hawaii is coming to an end. Jon's work is sending him back to Dayton for the month of May for training, and I'm not about to stay here by myself with no job. So, I'm headed back to Indy to start my job with National City. I'm excited to be going home because I miss my family and friends, but I'm just not done with Hawaii yet. I love swimming in the ocean and going to the beach and snorkeling. I love seeing mountains everyday and exploring new cool things. Hawaii is spectacular and I'm so lucky that I got to take 2 long months to explore just about everything the island of Oahu has to offer. Hopefully, some day I can take just as much time to explore the other islands as well, because the beauty of this tropical paradise is amazing. However, I will be back home again in Indiana on Friday.
No comments:
Post a Comment