Arrival into Honolulu

　

Aloha -

　

Well, here I am in Hawaii. The flight over from SF was very uneventful, made even more uneventful by the monosyllabic teenager I sat next to on the plane. She was obviously a University student on the way back to her parents for Thanksgiving, very pretty, but communication with an old git like me was just not going to happen.

Other than scowling and looking embarassed when I asked to get out of my seat to go to the bog, not one word did we exchange. Oh well...some you win, some you dont!

Well, one word.....I piled my tray-table high with iPad, food, wine, water and coffee, and turned to her and asked her..haha.. which one of those items were going to land in my lap first (being of the ultra clumsy on a plane)......she turned, look at my tray table and said, simply 'salad...' Well, she was bloody wrong about that (twas the wine glass, luckily empty, which went flying !!)

Turning left out of SF, I caught a rather nice glimpse of the city in the distance, but that was the last land I saw for 5 1/2 hours. I read, slept, ate, counted sheep and read some more. Pretty boring fright.

Honolulu weather on arrival was a little disappointing in as much as there was a very low cloud base, but the temperature was in the 80's with a lightly breeze wafting in off the Pacific ocean...I think I can cope with this for a week or so!

I had planned on hiring a car and going into town to see what hotel caught my eye, but all the rental desks we closed, so I resolved to catch a bus into town. I ambled out to the Bus area and was met by a young lady of ...shall we say, Tongan proportions.

But we chatted away, and she asked me what Hotel I was staying at (I blanched a little at that question....) but need not have worried. She suggested, rather in a way I was not going to refuse, that I really should book a hotel before travelling into town.

I took her advice and thus sat, hippy style for 20 minutes on the pavement at Honolulu Airport, using my iPad to find somewhere in Waikiki to stay. It all went swimmingly, and I darted back to the Bus station and started to wait...and wait...and wait.

　

Another chap came along, as did a few others, and finally I suggested to one first chap that we share a taxi into town. He agreed, and we started off.

Well, he has become my newest best friend..indeed we are meeting for dindins at his Hotel tonight he is staying at the Waikiki Hilton - I am not...! - He is a rather thoughtful engineer from New York who seems to be Grand Fromage at a firm of Engineering consultants in Hackensack, New Jersey, which I presume to be somewhere near somewhere else unpronouncable - Schenectady! His name is Orlando, he hails from Cuba as a child....so I think I am in for an interesting evening. We had a very wide ranging conversation - I can if I have to ! - in the cab and I am hugely looking forward to renewing my acquaintance with him.

My Hotel, called the Waikiki Aqua is somewhere less salubrious, but much to my surprise considering what I am paying, is in a super location one block away from Waikiki beach! I have huge room with a terrific view of a panoply of sky-scrapers, and so the view, especially in the evening is great

All in all I have decided to base myself in Honolulu until thursday, when I travel to Maui. It means I can leave my case etc here, and hopefully hire a car or a motor bike tomorrow if I can, and travel to North Shore to take a look at all that the surfing world has to offer!

Dinner was an interesting affair. Unfortunately Orlando decided he wanted to have dinner in his hotel, and so we went to a sort of Brasserie arragement where we ate at the 'bar'

We chatted for about an hour and a half about very serious matter, incorporating religion, politics and financials. I can carry it off pretty well for about an hour and a half but not much longer - I tend to veer towards hysteria when I run out of the bleedin' obvious to say - and so I concluded our evening at about 10, he paid, and I shot out of the hotel to take a look at Waikiki Beach.

Blimey...it is a bit of a tacky sort of place. It makes Surfers Paradise in Queensland look like The Vatican, but I am not going to worry about that, it is fun, lively and well....dreadfully naff, but I am sure once the sun shines tomorrow, and it had better or I will smash it's bottom, and I rent a car.

The weather continues to disappoint. it is cloudy though warm. They say the weather will improve by the weekend. Well that is a good thing.

I decide at the last minute I am going to hire a car for the day. Trying to get around by public transport is a futile exercise, and so I call a hire company and commandeer a Jeep Strangler. I tried for a Mustang, but they didn't have any. Refused a Chrysler Sebring as it is for poofs! The Strangler seemed a good idea, and so it turned out.

I ratted round Honolulu - pretty dreadful place - for a while until I saw a sign pointing me out of town then pressed the afterburner button and we were off. I had walked down to the car rental emporium and asked them to take the roof down for me. They bollocked me fo not helping in this process...`i didn't know how it worked, otherwise I would have done it myself...honestly, some people....but soon the car was nude and off I went.

The first thing I did was stop at a view point. My God, the tourists....fat, nylon clad and numbered with signs, swarmed over the place. I ran up to the 'view', took a couple of photos, compared it with the GPS I had of the area, decided `i would go `there' and hoofed it back to the Strangler, dodging the camera laden tourists as I went.

Well, 'there' was wrong...I ended up somewhere I didn't want to be where they had a damn great Macy's store. I stopped, parked up and went in. Everything on offer seemed to be free, or nearly so, and so I bought 2 pairs of troos, 2 polo shorts from my mate Ralph and a dead posh suitcase to put them in.....yours for $100.

Once sartorially arranged, I continued. My next stop was a Mormon Temple...Church of the Latter Day Saints. I love the Mormons...they are a wonderful people and I wish I could be as good and believing as they are. I was met by a young girl, dressed as a vestal virgin, who offered to do anything I liked so long as I converted to Moronism. Well, she gave me a pen and a questionnaire.

It just so happens my Grandfather was a rather rebellious Bishop of Bradford in bygone days, and whilst I dont profess to be terribly interested n this fact, I do tend to mention his name when cornered in religious situations. It knocks them flat, and did again here! I was left to get on with looking around the temple unmolested by 'people to answer questions' and so I rather enjoyed myself. The temple had some beautiful fountains.

I stopped or lunch at a roadside prawn emporium. They offered a normal plate of prawns in a nice sauce with a spoon of rice, and then super hot sauce with the same. Somewhat predictably I went for the super-hot, and somewhat predictably I was beaten back again by the heat. It made my Mexican's friend's effort in Sausalito seem tame by comparison. Amazing. The restaurant is actually a van..at least the cooking part is....and has been covered by grafiti.

I thought I had arrived at my goal for the day.. Pipeline...the one word name for arguably the greatest surfing beach in the world. I wanted to see it for myself, and was also going there to pay homage on behalf of Oscar who is a keen surfer.

After a few false starts I parked up and started the long trek down the sands to where Pipeline is. The area itself is rather small but the waves are something else. I took out my camera and started clicking away.

Cool dudes practising for the day they can 'do' Pipeline

Pipeline

To my horror I saw that I had something very nasty on the inside of the camera as all the photos are coming out with marks on them....nothing I can do and so I sit down for the long haul. I am determined to get some good photos of surfing, which has always been a photographic subject that has interested me, The photos always look so dramatic.

The end results were not too bad. It is necessary, as so much in photography to watch the action directly through the lens and wait for something to unfold. I quickly got adept at knowing which wave was going to produce a flurry of activity, and it seemed to me that 2 people and 2 only would depart on each suitable wave, each one flashing off in opposite directions.

The size of the waves were tremendous...at least when you are used to Compton Bay on the Isle of Wight - and the skill of the surfers amazing. I caught one or two wipe-outs just at the right moment, and caught one young chap looking as if he was leaping off his board sideways, his lanyards still in place. I put it as my profile page on Facebook !

I have in life found that being friendly to people usually works well, and so I started chatting to a very pretty young girl (turned out to be from Australia) - I am sure she thought I was 'hitting' on her, but I think realised pretty soon I... well....wasn't....and so we chatted away about surfing and about life in Australia. Turns out she comes from a place called Torquay which is outside Melbourne somewhere, had a friend who was surfing here and so had come with him.

I noticed she went up some stairs to a small shack which had a fridge outside it, and so assuming it was a bar followed her up the stairs and sat down in one of the chairs. I was accosted by a black lab and we had a nice chat.

A rather elderly man, all suntanned and gnarled came up and started talking to me....and eventually asked me 'how I knew 'Joe'?....

"I don't.....Whose Joe ?" I said

"The guy who owns this house...."

Ooops...as they say, what I had mistaken for a bar, turned out to be the 'main" surfing shack on Pipeline, and there I was sitting chatting to one of the oldest and famous Pipeline hands.... I immediately leapt up and apologised profusely

"Relax Man.....it's OK. Chill out".

Yes....well...thank you so much.....we English are so gauche! Phew!

I left Pipeline rather late and drove back to Honolulu where I spent the rest of the evening in my hotel room....didn't really fancy going out, and so I took a bath, bought a picnic in the local Food Mart and went to bed early.

　

I was fed up with the state of my camera. The photos were coming out atrociously and so I spent some time trying to track down a camera repair shop in Honolulu. Well, there isn't one, and so with some trepidation I bought myself a so called Camera Repair Outfit and set to to try and do it myself. I cleaned all the parts I could see with the solution they gave me and some cotton buds. I THINK it has done the trick...we shall see tomorrow.

By now it was too late to do anything much else, and so I returned the rental car. I had hired it from the Honolulu centre, and it was only another $30 to take it to the airport (a taxi is $40)

I booked into my Pacific Wings flight to Maui. The plane turned out to be a prop-driven Dash 8 (haven't been on one of those in years) and the flight over to Maui took only about 20 minutes. Bit cloudy, but sat next to a very nice, and very huge lady who told me where to go on Maui.

I took a sort of shared taxi to the Aloharentals office to pick up my Hippy Wagon, as I shall call it! God, what a bloody mess....the place was littered with bits of VW campervan. I was surprised that they had a whole one to let me have.

I checked myself in, worked out how much I was going to pay and did the card transaction myself....the girl working there didn't have a clue, but soon was off kangarooing up the road....to Safeway.

The road to Hana

I hit the Road to Hana just as it was getting dark, definitely not the best time to drive a switch back single track road! But on I went eventually ending up in a small park, rightnext tonthe aocean at a plave called Kahui, or Halfway to Hana' where I parked up for the night, cooked an elaborate meal for WIHFDT, and fell asleep to the noise of the waves crashing ashore about 30 yards from my van.

Where I stopped for the night

The volcanic beaches

I took petrol (sorry, gas) and carried on. The road past Hana is even more tortuously twisting and is littered with waterfalls and streams, that cascade prettily down from the hills above. There then come the 7 sacred pools (which aren't sacred at all....an opportunistic businessman named the pools, which were known by their Hawaiian name...Kakat'atp'apa or something...and changed them to 7 sacred pools...clever chap, and the tourists come flocking. They did look very pretty I must say, tiered all the way down to the sea. Plenty of people swimming in them too.

My last port of call was ….rather amazingly....Charles Lindburgh's grave. The famous aviator (first to cross the Atlantic, and whose baby was then kidnapped and killed) came to live on Maui and died here of cancer.

Lei maker

His gravestone is in an absolutely beautiful churchyard, set by the water. He fell for the place when a friend of his invited him to come and stay...an amusing story about his friend is that he had '7 children.....' I put it in inverted commas, as they werent children at all, but Barbary apes...he would always walk around with them in tow.

I decided to return back towards Hana, rather than travel on the rather desolate part of the island that comes beyond. I had not washed this morning properly and was hopeful of finding a camping ground with showers....but to no avail. A sudden image of the film South Pacific came into my head where one of the cast is seen having a bath in a pool....I decided to do them same, and soon was clambering down the rocks by the side of the road to a series of small pools. Whilst I didnt take everything off, I washed hair and upper torso in the stream,. It was wonderful...I am afraid some cars passed and hooted, but took no notice !

Feeling very refreshed I pressed and and drove back to where I had spent the night last night. As mentioned there is a YMCA camp just up the road, and last night it was closed. I went there again this evening...open.

So I drove in and asked for a space to put my van.

SunRISE at Diamond Head

Bali Haii...!

I was met by a delightful lady who told me I was welcome to stay for the princely sum of $18 a night. She offered me a sleeping bag and told me to use the showers, and also to charge my ipad (yay...so important!)

Wonderful dancing at Hana fair

She pointed me down a path and told me to park there.

I parked up and got the immediate impression by both the noise of the waves and the night time view, illuminated as it ias by the full moon, that tomorrow's view to wake up by is going to outdo last night's.

I was planning to go over to Molokai for three days, but every guidebook I have read since I have been here has, reading between the lines, told how pretty uninspriring and boring the island is. I am afraid I promised the owner of a condo (the web address is, almost unbelieveably www.condomolokai.com (read it again....!) that I would rent her place for 3 nights....it looked lovely, but I am afraid my interest in the YMCA cottages, which appears to be high on a bluff overlooking a wonderful bay here in Maui, the path to which is lit by candle lit lanterns, is something more to my taste. An inspection trip is arranged for tomorrow morning

I wish I could say today had been a good day, but it has not. The banana bread I had for breakfast today, was nowhere near as good as the one yesterday, and of course I should have seen that as a bad omen, and gone back to bed !

Firstly it rained almost all the day, which was depressing and miserable. I decided I would drive the long way around the island, rather than return tthe Hana road. I started on the latter and decided I would turn round and go the long way. Well, a long way it was, and in the most atrocious conditions.

I stopped in Hana on the way through and visited a delightful town fair, at which some on the children were dancing hula to a wonderful band. It was a delight. Another highlight was a corner where they had put a wrecked car, and people were paying to vandalise it with a hammer....a little like the cometition at fairs where you bash a point with a hammer, but this was a car instead.

I continued around the South side of the Maui, and the rain came down relentlessly. The road was absolutely atrocisous, and despite my wonderful camper van putting up with it manfully, I was utterly fed up by the end. There was nothing to look at as everything was lost in the mist, and the road went from bad to awful to worse.

The only people who were joining me on the road were 4WD cars, driven by real red necks and so it was exciting to drive certainly, but I could have done without it as there was little to see.

I arrived in Kuhlau exhausted, and really that should have been that, as a cardinal rule in travel is that once you have seen the best of a place, you do not stay on just to see if there is anything as nice or better. There usually isnt, and boy was this the case on Maui

I wanted to return the van to the rental company and return myself there and then to Honolulu, but for some reason decided to keep it another night. The man who runs the company suggested that I go and stay at a 'nice' camping site in Lahaina...well, off I went.... on the road to Lahaina.

The timing at least was perfect...the sunset was about to explode over the Western sky, and so I (togher with about another 100 cars) stopped and stared at the spectacle. A hump back whale decided to join us far out to sea and difficult to see.

SunSET at Lahaina

It suddenly dawned on me what utter awfulness the American tourist is....the amount of screaming from grown up　people at the spectacle of a whale miles out to sea - go whale....go -　the amount of contrived kissing and cuddling from the spectators as the sun went down and the general whooping and hollering that went on in that one car park I am afraid made me quite despressed. It is as if everything is a fairy tale...that for their time in Hawaii they will live what they imagine the dream to be,　 rather than actually look at anything objectively.

I pressed on. The night fell and I arrived at the camping ground. My God, it was like something out of a horror movie...trailer trash people living in trashy trailers. There were 2 showers, outside and a smell of rotten food etc which was appalling. That was it....I decided there and then I had made a dreadful mistake and returned forthwith to the airport and a rather second rate hotel for the night, once again full of people seemingly pretending at partying...they are all whooping and hollering, dressed to the nines in cheap clothes, all looking rather sad for themselves.

My home for 3 days...about to slip off the efge of the road!

I took an instant decision and phoned Expedia and will return to San Francisco on Monday night instead of Wednesday. In the meantime I will return to Honolulu tomorrow and go on Monday, with a clean camera, and try again at taking some half way decent photos of surfing.

Am I over reacting to a bad day? Somehow I dont think so. Catherine told me in no uncertain terms that I would hate Hawaii. Well, I dont hate it, but really have seen all one imagines Hawaii to be (surfing and nice scenery) but dont really want to take a longer look than what I have seen at the rest.

Well...I had to try my hand at body surfing !

Of course I could stay on and lie on a beach for 2 days on Molokai....but everyone I talked to about Molokai gave me the impression it is a rather　desolate place, where most of the land is in the hands of private landowners and so you get to see very little.

　

I kind of believe them. One of the things that has struck me about Maui is that everywhere you go there are signs telling people to keep out...stay away...trespassers will be prosecuted etc. I have NOT felt, other than one or two distinct exceptions, that Hawaii is anywhere other than where the tourist gets fleeced. I can well believe that Molokai is worse !

...6 hours later...

　

　

I wrote yesterday's entry in a low state. 7 hours later, refreshed from a surprisingly good night's sleep (normally I dont sleep well on occasions when travel goes awry, as I am usually angry with myself for having let it get away from me) I feel no different.

I have booked myself back to San Francisco tomorrow, returning to Honolulu tonight.

Maui was always going to　be a marginal bet. It is essentially a holiday island, where Americans of a certain type come to forget their　troubles back home, and lead what for them is a dream for a week or so. I do not propose to criticise that....maybe I have done the same myself in the past, but not any more..!

The Road to Hana was wonderful (Hana itself less so)....but it was something beautiful to LOOK at, superficial, not to go into in detail. Why, because　there is absolutely nothing there! Sitting on the edge of the Ocean in my campervan was of course wonderful...but there, hypocrite that I am, 　I did what I say I did not do....permitted myself　a dream!

But I allowed the dream to continue for 1/2 day....I thought of returning to find that dream again for another night...but practicality took over.....nothing to do, no one to talk to, nowhere to eat, just a view to look at.


Not enough. Personally I haven't done sitting on beaches...ever....I would go nuts at La Galere after an hour of sitting on the beach there....!

Of course there were surprises along the way...the greatest of which was maybe tripping over Charles Linberg's Oceanside grave in a delapidated graveyard off the beaten track, or Aunt Hatty who agreed to teach me how to make a Lei, or the relaxed attitude when I accidentally gate-crashed the Pipeline surfer's lair, or the wonderful singing at the Village fair in Hana...but on the whole I really don't think that there was much of any interest to anyone with a braincell in their head !

The drive round the rest of the Island was an exercise in torture. Desolate, in my view highly　dangerous, boring...and my return to Kahlui should have been the end of it. I should have got straight on a plane and left....I was at the airport dammit....but　my innate curiosity made me　fall into the trap to go out and look for just one more thing worthwhile coming all this way for.

And then it fell apart. I could tell the camper van rental man was struggling to recommend somewhere to stay, ...but he wanted　his $80 and so I was fodder to his greed.....go to the Lahaina camping groud...it's great there, and they've got showers! Like hell....it was.

Hawaii is a dream.....there is nothing here...no charm, no grace.　　The Aloha spirit...? Per..lease!! 　I have never seen so many signs telling you basically to F***-off...big time ! They know your'e not going to take any notice, because that it what the guide books tell you to do, bu they'll have a damn good try.

Man didn't make Hawaii...God did, and yes he did a brilliant job. It's greed that has made the rest...and has made a very bad job of it. Basically, and of course it's　a generalisation, look to your left (out to sea!) and you see what God made...to your　right and you see what Man did (that is assuming you are driving round in a clockwise fashion!)　and, boy...　man has alot to learn.

I am used to Islands! I make no secret of disliking the Isle of Wight, but that has more to do with the fact it impinges on my life in a personal way and represents something I do not want...namely being forced by circumstance to live in an social and professional　environment which is alien to me (and to which I am doubtelessly　alien too!) on many fronts...but I live there gladly as it enables me to be with Caroline, and anyway, it's not that bad...on a sunny day...in the summer!

But it seems Hawaii has been developed to ape the American mainland...all shopping Malls (even to me the American obsession for shopping is quite, quite incredible!) and cheap (now, there's a joke!) clip-joint restaurants serving huge...massive portions of lousy food!

As an aside, one thing that really　amuses me is　how has　coffee has become a way of life here!　


You are almost judged by the amount of coffee you drink!　　　Join the lines at a　Starbucks and you will be given a mind-boggling array of 'choices' how you want your coffee made up. This milk, that milk, this coffee..this size (Bucket...vat...or barrel!) frappo, cappo, latte, skinny, fat, half-fat, to go, to stay...I mean for Gods sake! But what you get, however hard you try...and boy have I tried...you get a vast container of frothed milk with a flavouring of coffee!

That's that.....tomorrow San Francisco. I want to go to MOMA, Napa Valley..., weather permitting up Mount Diablo, and I want to help my cousin (of she will let me ) get ready for out Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday! Worthwhile things...not the frippery of coming to and Island for what was to be a week....and everyone told me...would be shorter than that. But then when have I ever listened to what people tell me!

Oh, and I might just pop down to Gilroy to the Outlet Malls there......! Hypocrite!

 

Something of a laundry day today....not that I did any laundry! I booked various flights, rented a car in SF, a hotel for tonight in Honolulu -a cheapie but on Waikiki, and generally got a little ship shape.

I then went and sat on a beach for a couple of hours....wasn't a very good beach, but at least I got it to myself.

I wish I could do beaches, but I can't. I stayed there for about 20 miutes, walked up and down a little and then returned to the camper for a snooze!

At 2.30 I returned the camper to the shop, as they call it, and picked up the shuttle to the airport.

The flight back to Honolulu was absolutely wonderful! There was a performance of clouds the ilke of which I have rarely seen, and whilst we were an hour or two short of the sunset, there was a sort of pinkish glow in the distance.

Elephant in the skies...?

Miss Piggy?

I also sat there photographing cloud formations in the form on animals ! It was great and I got a dog, a boar, BB and elephant and an incredible formation of a man seemingly asleep...I called it God in his Bed!

I caught the public bus into town with the probable intention of renting a car for the day tomorrow but this took some time, but at least I was able to see parts of Honolulu I would not otherwise have seen. I also watch a rather good sunset from the bus...a sunset if for everyone, not just those sitting on Waikiki beach

Dinner, after my rather unhealthy lunch of a Burger King namely a Whopper, with fries and a coke was a light affair at Starbucks, and consisted of a delicious Yoghurt with granola and an iced tea. It struck me as rather sad that there were so many young people sitting in Starbucks with their snouts in their computers.....they should have been out partying ! But it is a nice atmosphere in Starbucks, Honolulu. The staff are very friendly, apart from a brief few moments when one of them - a girl - decided to kick a plastic bnech around behind the counter and made a terrible din. No reason really, and she soon got the message and quit.

I walked back to the hotel and was asleep pretty quick. Tomorrow I have to get up at 05.20 to go and watch the sunrise over Diamond Head. We leave the hotel at 6 sharp

I did not stay in on Maui which were glorified trailer parks! I have always been someone very susceptible to my immediate surrounding, and if I am somewhere that is uncivilised I am afraid I become uncivilised too...and want out without compromise.

Honolulu and Waikiki beach from Diamond Head

Maui is also a holiday island and that is all. There seems to be this rather unfriendly underlying attitude of the locals to tourists (I can kind of understand it, having seen the same in Cannobio) but 'we' are their lifeline and so why make us feel unwelcome is a little beyond me.

I have in fact booked myself back to San Francisco on Monday night (tonight at midnight) but this was something of an error on the part of Expedia. I phone them up to book the flight. Using Skype all the time on the iPad the reception was not always good, and so they had trouble hearing me. I did decide half way through the phone call that I would indeed stay in Honolulu until my original departure day of Wednesday and so put the phone down in order to cancel the call (they had put me on hold, it wasnt me being rather rude!) Unfortunately they completed the booking without me being on the line, and so the departure was confirmed for tonight. Oh well, I will return here soon.

As soon as returned to Honolulu I phoned up a company that did guided tours up Diamond Head to see the sunrise. I am not terribly good at getting up in the morning, but at the appointed hour (05.20) I headed into the bathroom and soon was bright eyed and bushy trailed down in the lobby for the pick up.

On the dot of 6 the van turned up and out got a very friendly young man who was to be our guide.




He told us en route he was a cyclist and a mountain climber in his spare time (of which there seemed a great deal as all he did was lead people up DIamond Head at 06.00 7 days a week!)

We arrived and started the ascent. I and a couple of other people were a little restless at all the stops we had to do to have this and that explained to us en route, and so marched off on our own to try and get to the top before sunrise. In the event we didnt quite make it and so we all congregated on a ledge only a few feet from the summit and watched the sun poke its head over the horizon. All very nice, but the thing about sunrises is the lights that appear BEFORE the sun actually rises, and we missed those !

The view from the top was wonderful, with the forest of skyscrapers at Waikiki laid out below us.It was an amazing sight. The ubiquitous Japanese tourists were absolutely everywhere, hundreds of them congreagated at the top! They are a funny bunch, and seem to behave differently to the rest of us. They are obviously very herd like and what one person does, all the others have to do as well ! Some of them were dressed very well indeed - really lovely dressed and shoes - whilst others were dressed what can only be described as eccentrically ! One had climbed up and down Diamond Head wearing high　 heels !

Out tour guide then proceeded to do his stuff....and my goodness, what stuff it was ! He was absolutely brilliant and rivetting. He had a way of explaining things (we are talking the history of Hawaii, the flora and fauna and the manner in which it developed on Hawaii and the other islands) which had me at least spellbound. Hawaii is at the end of a chain of volcanoes that stretch from the Aleutian Islands off Alaska to the top of the Big Island. He explained to us how the animals and birds of Hawaii arrived and how the main bird of Hawaii is the finch.

He explained that the origins of the Hawaiian people are likely to have been from Taiwan and that of course pleased the Taiwanese in our group!

It was all really fascinating and I was quite sad when at 0830 we returned into town, but it had been a marvellous experience.

The view from the Moana Surfrider Hotel

Breakfast with a view !!

Anoher view....! Delightful Japanese girls having fun

　

Next I went to the Moana Surfrider for breakfast, I felt I had deserved it and enjoyed it so much the other day, even if it did cost $30 ! There were not so many people there as last time - it was a little later than last time, and blow me (shades of Pete's Parking, where I always, without fail manage to get a parking space wherever I want one !) I got shown to a table right on the balcony and with nothing between me and the splendour of Waikiki beach.

A lonely monk !

Hanamula Bay...where Elvis made Blue Hawaii

I was delighted and proposed to make the most of this ! The hotel have a copious buffet and without going mad I had a plate of fresh fruit - pineapple, papaya and Mango - cereal and a cooked breakfast of some scrambled eggs and some bacome with a small side of hash browns, all beautifully cooked. Sitting right on the beach ( I alternated which side of the table I sat on...one of the many advantages of solo travel!) and looking at the world go by, the surfers out in the Ocean, the sailing boats taking tourists out and the outriggers doing the same, was a really splendid experience. I stayed there as long as I could....even toying with the idea of stuffing some lunch down me just to be able to stay there (I didnt!)

The highlight for me was the arrival of 2 very Grande Dames, both beautifully coiffed and dressed (I am sure it was a silk Chanel dress!) who were on holiday together, and both of whom ordered what for the world seemed like Tomato Juices ! Being somewhat cheeky amd always admiring of any woman who knows how to dress (and I am afraid I know only one, and that is Caroline !) I went up to them, wagged my finger disapproovingly and said

'I DO hope those are Bloody Mary's you are having for Breakfast'

'Indeed they are, young man' (I liked that bit) - we chatted for a while - they came from Los Angeles - but then I left them get on with it.

Next I went to the car hire emporium and hired another Jeep Strangler. It taxi there actually cost me 1/4 of the daily hire rate to hire a car for a day and I headed off the the Iolani Palace - where the King and Queen of Hawaii lived until it was annexed by the US in the 1800's.

It was a marvellous palace, very cool and very well furnished. Apparently the King and Queen were very sophisticated hosts and the parties held there must have been wonderful. I am afraid I dont take much notice of places that tell you not to photograph (they mean dont use flash, but most people dont seem to know that most modern cameras take much better photos without the flash than with) and took some nice photos of the interior.

Next I wanted to take a drive up the north of Honolulu, and set off to take a look at the beaches. I hade wanted to rerturn to Pipeline for some more photos but the surf up there was not very good, so I decided not to bother.

Well, I am glad I did. The Eastern part of the Island of Oahu is absolutely breathaking. There are cliffs and lava rocks which jut out into the Ocean. I visited Hanamaula Bay - where they filmed Blue Hawaii with Elvis - but as I didnt really feel like spending the day there decided against going down to it - it looks beautiful enough from the top - I carried on and stopped at another view point, whereupon a car full of Shaolin Monks turned up to take a look too! I chatted to them for a while - one of them lived on the Island, and the others were visitors from Thailand - and took some wonderful photos of them on the cliffs, their orange robes contrasting beautifully with the black rocks!

I carried on and stopped at a beach called Sandy Beach where there seemsed to be alot of activity.


I took out my camera - cleaned, but my no means perfect - and went and sat down. There were some young boys doing rather well, and so I started photographing them. They were obviously playing up to the camera and were really doing some wonderful tricks with their body beards.

The sun began to set which only served to bathe the whole beach is a wonderful light. I practised what I dont preach, and took some photos direct into the sunlight,,,especially some of a couple of kids playing. They came out rather well, as much to my surprise did all the others of the surfing....apart from the single hair that seems to have stuck resolutely to my SLR which will mean a lot of Photoshopping before I can produce my Blurb book.

The boys at sandy bay

I got some good photos of the boys, and one or two of the girls but had to be a little careful　 on that one on account of the size og the bikinis they were wearing....and told them I would put them up on my Facebook page. They were rather with that idea!

I returned the car and caught the shuttle bus to the airport...determined that as soon as I can I will return for a longer stay on Oahu and a good look at some of the other islands as　 well.