Hawaii 2013: Day 3, Tour of Oahu

Hanauma Beach — the Elvis Presley movie “Blue Hawaii” was filmed here.

Friday, April 26, 2013

Woke up at 6:30am.  It is sunny and it is probably warm too!

Today we are going on the Ultimate Circle Island Eco-Adventure tour offered by Discover Hawaii Tours.  We are to meet our bus at the Sheraton Bus station behind our hotel at 8am.  I made coffee and munched on shredded wheat.  My DH has toast.  It is nice having a kitchen!

We are on time to meet our bus, but our tour bus is not.   At 8:10am, my DH calls the tour company to ask when we could expect our driver to arrive, they said “soon”.  At 8:20am I called the tour company to ask the same question.   As I was speaking to a representative, our tour bus pulled up and I said “thank you for your help” and we hopped on the bus!  After stops at two more hotels, we are a total of 17 souls off to discover Oahu!

Our tour guide is Bruce, a nice guy our age who grew up on the island.  He tells us he is a retired school teacher who taught science and physics at the high school attended by our President, Barack Obama!  He said “Barack was involved in student government and basketball.  He had an afro out to here!   He wasn’t in any of my classes though.”

Bruce was great!   He told us a lot about Hawaiian history and I especially liked to hear about the kings and queens and the traditions of the Hawaiian people.   If you get a chance to go on this tour, do it!  Here is the agenda for the day.  Click on the links for more information.

• Laniakea Beach (Turtle Beach)
• Waimea Valley and Waimea Falls Waterfall
• Exclusive Kualoa Ranch Experience
• Oahu’s North Shore Beaches
• Waimea Bay & Sunset Beach
• Scenic La’ie Point Lookout
• Byodo-In Temple
• Nu’uanu Pali Lookout
• Hanauma Bay
• South Shore Oahu
• Halona Blowhole & Halona Cove
• Sandy Beach Lookout

Here is a map or our journey today:

Map lifted from the tour website.

It is best to describe this tour by pictures.  I apologize to all my readers with slow internet connections but words cannot describe the wonders we saw on this informative and enjoyable trip.

On the bus and driving up the middle of Oahu. Here we see the remains of pineapple and sugar cane fields.

Waimea Valley Gardens,

Waimea Valley Waterfall.

North Shore Beach.

Waimea Valley — a popular place to film movies like “Jurassic Park”.

Fruit stand of local produce. I ate some great watermelon here!

At the Kualoa Ranch, we take a boat to a “secret” beach for lunch.

Walking to the secret beach.

Our lunch time view!

My Vegan sandwich — light and refreshing!

A hammock on the beach! Must try!

The view from the hammock.

Back to the tour.

The Nuuanu Pali Lookout. Very high, very windy, spectacular view.

The view from the bus!

The Byodo-In Temple.

Feeding the koi at the Byodo-In Temple.

The Buddha at the Byodo-In Temple.

Sandy Beach.

The Halona Blowhole.

The “From Here to Eternity” Beach.

Our tour group! We met people from Texas and Australia.

Our tour bus — thought you would like to know,

We returned to Waikiki around 6pm.  My DH took a shower and I downloaded/sorted/compressed the pictures I took of the day.  At 7:45pm, we went up to the 26^th floor of our hotel to see the Hilton Hotel’s Friday Evening Firewords show.  It only lasted 10 minutes, but it was excellent!

Hilton fireworks show from the 26th floor of the Imperial Hawaiian Resort Club.

At 9pm we went to Roy’s for seafood.  I can’t remember the Hawaiian names for the fish we ate, just know that they tasted gooooood!

Roy’s serves excellent seafood in a nice upscale (but noisy) atmosphere.

At the end of the evening, we were tired and looking forward to our comfortable bed.  Tomorrow will be a lazier day, I think.

Quote of the day:  “If this beach is so secret, why are there so many people here?”  — Anna