Our agenda for today is a tour around the island of Oahu. We will see beaches, memorials, lookouts and Diamond Head. We will also take in some different sights along the way like these tall thin evergreens that seem to have a lot fewer branches than most evergreens. They look a bit like fish skeletons.
Our first stop is Waimea Bay Beach Park on the North Shore. It is an interesting beach with a large sandy area.
The sandy beach ends suddenly at a rocky jetty on one side.
On the other side, there are residential and other buildings.
There is an interesting lagoon on the back side of the sandy beach.
Our next stop on the North Shore is Waiale’e Beach Park. The sandy part of this beach stretches farther than the previous beach.
Because it is a longer beach, there are more interesting things to see, like this rock that is being eroded by the waves.
And some white coral on a black part of the beach.
Here is one of the shorter sandy portions of this beach.
While this part of the beach is quite long, the sandy part is not very wide.
Our next stop is Kokoloio Beach. It is a fairly large bay with sandy areas all around it.
On our way to the Nu’uanu Pali Lookout, we saw a place where the island suddenly just drops down into the ocean.
We also saw a very brightly colored chicken. We have been told that these birds are protected. It is a crime to kill them. Because of that, you see them everywhere, though most are not this colorful.
When we arrived at the Nu’uanu Pali Lookout, we learned that parking fees are one of the ways Hawaii gets money from tourists. Tourists get the privilege of paying $20 or more to park. Residents get to park for free.
The view from the lookout was spectacular and varied. There is a golf course in the foreground, a residential area behind that, the city on the other side of the residential area and then the ocean.
Looking to the left from the same spot, you can see the cliffs that drop precipitously into the valley. We are just below the clouds at this elevation.
You can also see how variable the terrain of the island is from the lookout.
After the lookout, we headed back to the ocean at Kailua Beach Park. This beach is the largest we have seen yet. There were more people swimming, sunbathing, and
parasailing. It was interesting to watch the person get airborne!
The Kailua beach appeared more scenic as we were walking back to our car.
At the Makapu’u Point Light House and overlook, it was obvious why they built the light house. This is one place where the mountains literally drop into the ocean.
In the places where the transition was a little more gradual, the surf was very strong.
In addition to a light house we could not see, there were also bunkers that were built during World War II.
We were surprised when we arrived at Sandy Beach. It is quite scenic, but very rocky. Maybe that is sand stone.
This is another view of Sandy Beach. We decided we were close enough to the shoreline and decided not to climb down to the surf.
One of our stops for today was the Amelia Earhart Marker. It was a small marker with lots of flags. It appeared to be a spot where people may have watched for Amelia Earhart when she was solo flying from the mainland.
Since we did not take the hike to the Light House at Makapu’u Point, and we did not walk down to the beach at Sandy Beach, we decided to go to Diamond Head Memorial a day early.
As we drove up, we discovered we needed a ticket to get in. We bought one online as we were pulling up to the entrance gate. This was another place free to residents. It was well worth the admission fee. The gatekeeper was kind. We arrived about 30 minutes before our ticket was effective. Since it was late afternoon and they weren’t too busy, he let us in early.
Diamond Head is an old volcano. We climbed up the inside of the volcano. We used some tunnels dug into the mountain as part of our climb.
Diamond Head provides fabulous views of the Pacific Ocean.
That is why the military built observation bunkers into the higher elevations on the sides of Diamond Head.
We decided to go inside the bunker.
Inside the space was small. It was barely six feet high inside. While the view was amazing, it looked like it would be a long shift scanning the skies and the ocean for any activity.
From outside the bunker, you could get a clear view in may directions. Clouds in this direction.
Clear skies and rough surf and a lighthouse in this direction.
Here is a close up of the well maintained light house.
We had never seen a hole in the ocean before. This is a close up view of the rough surf seen above.
We took a selfie in the late afternoon sun over the Pacific Ocean.
Then is was time to climb back down into the crater of the volcano. First, we had to climb down a dark, narrow spiral staircase that started inside the bunker. It was so dark, our photos didn’t turn out. At the bottom of the spiral staircase, we walked about 100 feet to the top of a very tall concrete staircase. We were glad to be going down rather than up.
Here are some of the flowers we saw today.
We enjoyed our drive around Oahu. We decided that we could adjust to the traffic for a one day tour, but as a daily routine, the traffic would not be fun.