Sojourn in the Sun, Part 11: Oahu driving tour 01/17
A trip to various sites around the island
TODAY IS THE FINAL DAY of our walking tour, although we'll remain for a few more days as the guest of my cousin who lives in a Honolulu suburb. The day will be consumed by a bus tour up the east side of the island and back through the central valley. We have several stops along the way, accompanied by the nearly ceaseless patter of the tour guide. He's a nice fellow, but rambles endlessly on. By the day's end, I'm very glad to leave the bus. despite that, it's been an enjoyable day and we've seen many things we'd otherwise have missed, so it's a value-added experience.
First up, of course, are the multi-million-dollar homes of the rich: Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey, Bette Midler, and many others have very posh oceanside estates along the south shore. None of them has invited us to stop in, however, so we cruise past without even leaving a note to let them know we were in the area. It's their loss.
Then it's onward to Koko Head District Park and an overlook of Hanauma Bay. While we're stopped I manage a few photos of golden plovers, another new-to-me avian species. They're wary and shy, and move along quickly when approached so distant telephoto shots were the best I could get. Sorry, Scott.
Ther ancient Polynesians followed the plovers to Hawai'i, reasoning that they must be headed for land nearby. Little did they suspect that the birds make a 3,000+ mile trip down from Alaska.
Following our brief stop here we motored along to another well-known spot just down the way, Halona Cove. This spot has been used as a backdrop for several movies; I know it best as the spot for the love scene in From Here to Eternity. We hope to spot turtles and, if we're very very lucky, perhaps a monk seal. Our luck is good but not great: a lone sea turtle is sloshing in the shallows but there aren't any seals around. Oh well.
Halona Cove: rugged and hard to reach, but apparently worth the trouble. We saw a trio of SCUBA divers and a snorkeler in the water.
From here we drove around past the southeastern tip of the island and began making our way up the eastern side. Our target was the Nu'uanu Pali Lookout, a prominence affording great views. It's also the spot where Kamehameha's warriors defeated the last chief on Oahu. In a grisly scene we're told that the opposing warriors were either forced off, or threw themselves off, the clifftop to avoid the shame of being captured.
Our bus journey next makes its way to Kahaluu and a magnificent Buddhist temple. We spend a half hour enjoying the building and grounds, and admiring the enormous koi in the ponds out front and on the side.
It's an impressive, magnificent bit of Chinese-style architecture.
Inside, a statue of the Big Man himself. There's fragrant sandalwood incense smoldering all around, giving the place an exotic and decidedly Eastern feel (as if it didn't already have one). Shoes off and all due reverence while inside, please.
A few of the many hundreds (possibly thousands) of koi in the ponds outside. They can live to be 100 or more, and recently a remarkable younger specimen was sold at auction for over $1.2 million.
Eventually reaching the northeast corner of the island we pause for lunch at a well-known shrimp shack, where I spy some mongoose (mongooses? mongeese? more than one mongoose, at any rate) also having lunch.
"As quick as a mongoose" is a very apt simile: these guys darted around like lightning. This was the first time I'd seen one in a setting where I could capture it in a photo.
Continuing our counter-clockwise transit of the island we pass the beach where Hawai'i's most famous big wave surfing competition, the "Eddie" (after Eddie Aikau, the North Shore's first lifeguard) is held. We learn that it's only held when there are 40+ foot waves for at least three days in a row, and that it's consequently only been held nine times since its inception in 1987. We're glad it's not on at the moment, though: if it were, the narrow two-lane road we're on would be jammed with over 40,000 surfing fans.
Rounding the northern tip of the island we reach the next-to-last stop for the day, Waimea Botanical Garden. Although I'm not especially interested in plants, botany, or horticulture, I do find the immense variety and sheer exuberance of tropical flora to be of interest, at least for the purposes of photography. The next hour-and-a-half give us time for a leisurely stroll up the garden path to the falls at the far end, then an equally slow-paced trek back to the entrance where I enjoy an adult beverage with a couple others of our group.
My wife spotted and photographed this white-rumped sharma. I'm glad because I never saw it.
Despite our reluctance to take "this-is-us-in-front-of-X" pictures, this is us in front of the waterfall and pool at the upper end of the kilometer-plus long walkway around which the botanic garden is laid out.
A new one on me (not that I'm even passingly acquainted with any of the other plants we've photographed on this trip): Bear's breeches. In taxonomic Latin that's Acanthus mollis to you.
I believe this is yellow elder, or yellow bells. Tecoma stans goes by many common names: Yellow Bells, Yellowbells, Esperanza, Yellow Trumpetbush, Yellow Trumpetflower, Trumpetbush, Trumpetflower, Yellow Elder, Hardy Yellow Trumpet, Yellow Trumpet Bush. It's a member of the Trumpet-Creeper family.
Our final stop on the bus tour is the Dole Plantation. Once a going concern as a pineapple producer, it's now little more than a massive tourist trap. We stop mostly to give an opportunity to hit the restrooms before the hour-plus trundle back down to Honolulu. My wife finds something of interest though: wine bottle decorations in the form of a grass skirt and hula shirt. The other feature of interest is the giant painted eucalyptus trees hedging the parking lot.
There were a number of the trees right around the parking area.
Our final group activity of the tour is a dinner at the Barefoot Beach snack bar on the beach (duh!) in Waikiki. We look back at the 12 days we've spent together, and reminisce on the things we've seen and enjoyed.
A musical duo are playing Hawai'ian tunes to entertain the customers, and periodically someone from the audience joins in to dance a hula. Tomo, a lovely young lady, entrances me with a sinuous, graceful dance that doesn't go on nearly as long as I'd prefer. Leaving the center of attention she returns to her table, where I note that she never completely stops moving to the continuing music: a leg tap here, an arm wave there, a subtle head shimmy, all almost unconsciously.
