On Monday, my sister and her kids had to go back to work/school, so we borrowed her car and headed out for a long drive around the whole island. Well, the eastern half of the island that is, since there didn't appear to be a highway that connects all the way around the northwest side. Since my sister lived in the center of Oahu, we headed out to the North Shore area first, made our way to Turtle Bay (in the northeast corner of the island), and then headed south along the east (windward) coast.
We stopped at Turtle Bay Resort to walk around and stretch our legs, get a coffee, and scope out the resort that was the other choice I considered for our resort stay while on island. It was nice, but the waves were pretty rough so the beach wouldn't have been safe for Evan to play in.
We were impressed by the amount of electric vehicle plug in parking spots we saw in Hawaii.
Stopping for a photo opp at Turtle Bay resort
After making our way south on the east coast, we stopped for lunch in Laie. The tourist map I had bought for this road trip helped me know that Laie Pt had a great view, so we went to a local market to pick up some food and then drove to the tip of this point to eat our lunch. We had to stay in the car, since it was really windy out there, but the views were great even from the car.
Laie Pt for lunch: looking back toward the coast line
Laie Pt for lunch: looking out toward the ocean at the cool rock formation
Once again, we saw a McDonalds that seemed to be trying to blend in (in Laie).
After lunch we continued on our journey south along the east coast, until we found a park near Mokolii Island (aka Chinaman's Hat) that we figured we should stop at to get some photos and let Evan run around. It was still really windy (we were beginning to think the windward side of the island was very well named, until we also experienced the wind on the lee side later that day...turns out it was just a really windy day period). After this park, we headed on and made a short stop at a macadamia farm for some samples, and then continued our drive through the mountains to Nu'uanu Pali lookout. Since it was also very windy there, Evan didn't get to take in the view, but as John and I each went to check out the lookout we each took some photos. It was a pretty magnificent view. The mountains on this side of the island are so unique and exhibit very steep slopes!
At the park near Chinaman's Hat...it was really windy!
Nu'unau Pali lookout
After that (unfortunately-quick-due-to-the-wind) stop at the lookout we made our way across the mountains (I think it took a whole 15 minutes to cross them!) to the outskirts of Honolulu. While I had hoped to make our way around the southeast coast and back through the mountains again on another highway, we realized it was already nearing rush hour and so we should just go to the resort to check in. (We experienced rush hour on the island, and it's nasty. With so few roads and so many cars, there is just no where else for them to go but pile up on the highways/roads). So we made our way across the south part of the island to the southwest side where our resort at Ko Olina was awaiting us.
Close up view of the steep and unique terrain of the east slopes.
Beautiful view, and the water was gorgeous, along the southeast coast.
At the Diamond Head lookout.
1 comment:
Beautiful photos! Hug that little one tight tonight.
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