Aloha!

A 10 hour flight took us from winter in Australia, and being 9 hours ahead of home, to Summer in Hawaii and 11 hours behind. This gave us an extra day in Hawaii, perfect!

We stayed in the Waikiki area of Honolulu on the island of Oahu. Our hotel was a block away from the beach (about a 30 second walk) and in the middle of all the shops, restaurants etc. The location couldn’t be better. Waikiki is a really popular place with plenty of holiday makers everywhere. Its really nice though and very American, making it easy for us to relax and switch into holiday mode - not that we haven’t been in holiday mode for the past 8 months that is. We were lucky enough to be in Waikiki over the 4th of July weekend, and so were treated to a spectacular fireworks display on the beach.

The first few days we headed straight for the beach, with the main aim to regain our suntans lost to winter down under. The beach was very busy, but there was plenty of room for 2 small ones like us. Waikiki is great for surfing, so Phil made the most of this and rented a board for a few days. The water was a lovely 27 degrees, it was like being in a bath!

Although Waikiki is awesome its not really representative of true Hawaii so we made sure we got around to seeing more of Oahu. We got the bus up to the north shore, an area famous for surfing during Hawaii‘s winter, where the waves can reach 40ft! Our first stop was at the small town of Hale’iwa. It was a really pretty little town with a few shops and cafes and an amazing beach and harbour area. We had a look around the town and stopped for burgers and fries at what is apparently the best place in Hawaii! Our next stop was Waimea Bay. The beach here was beautiful, one of the best on the island. While we were there the sea was completely flat, almost like a pond, so it was crazy to think of the difference during the winter.

The next day we visited Pearl Harbour. It was very busy but well worth seeing. We had a look around the harbour and watched a documentary on the attack during WWII, which was really interesting and quite emotional. We also saw the Arizona memorial, which was built directly on top of the sunken battleship USS Arizona.

Our last few days in Waikiki were spent at the beach, before we flew over to one of the other islands called Maui. Here we were staying at an awesome resort in the beautiful town of Ka’anapali. We pretty much spent the whole time at the pool, just relaxing and soaking up the sun. Due to the location of Ka’anapali on Maui we got to see amazing sunsets every night we were there. On our last night we went to a luau, which was brilliant. There was an all you can eat buffet with traditional Hawaiian food like Mahi Mahi, and free Mai Tai’s. When we first arrived at the luau we were given a traditional Hawaiian greeting called a Lei greeting and were presented with Lei’s. The main part of the luau was the fantastic hula show, which consisted of all types of Hawaiian and Polynesian Islands dancing like Hula. Our favourite however was the fire knife dance.

We had an amazing time in Hawaii, and didn’t really want to leave. It is probably one of the most beautiful places we have ever been and we can’t wait to go back again!