Like a lot of people, Hawaii was one of our dream destinations. Lucky for us, Hawaii was an excellent stopover on our way to Canada. The time we spend on Oahu really lived up our dream. The new (slackline) friends that we made during our stay at the island were responsible for a big part of that (Mahola), next to the beauty of and sphere on the island. If you like outdoor adventures than Hawaii is the place to be. We packed a lot of outdoor activities in the six days that we were there and we loved it.

Waterlining

As we flew from Australia to Hawaii we had a 21 hours time difference. We left at Sunday 6 pm from Sydney and arrived at Sunday 6 am in Honolulu. Weird… We had a good flight with lots of empty chairs and therefore some sleeping possibilities. We were picked up from the airport by Emu. An awesome guy whom David met through the slackline community. As is was still early in the morning we went to his house in down town Honolulu to chill a bit and then went to the famous Waikiki for a swim. Even though Waikiki is very well known it is still a very relaxing beach with a nice park attached to it. But the real action started when we arrived at Cromwell’s beach for a day of waterlining with our new friends.

David says: “Wow, to be instantly welcomed into this rad slackline community, with an epic waterline, was simply amazing. Warm water, palm trees, so nice. The ocean waves and swell made the line very challenging and fun, a waterline to remember!”

After sunset we packed up and headed home (Emu’s home) with some others of the group. From there we walked to a Raman restaurant and played some black stories while waiting for a table.

And after dinner we were ready to leave Sunday the 24^th of January behind and for the first time in 48 hours sleep into Monday.

Hiking, whale spotting, slacklining

After a night of 5 hours sleep, we woke up tired. After a quick brekky, David brought Emu to work, as he was so kind as to lend us his car. We drove to the east side of the island and stopped at a lookout. To our surprise we could see a lot of whales, breaching and jumping out of the water. Hard to take a photo though!

We drove a bit further along the coast to Makapu’s point lighthouse trail.

Walking up that track we saw many more whales enjoying themselves in the water. So amazing to see. For lunch we stopped at a Hawaiian eat house (Ono’s steak and scrimp shack) ordering rice with steak and scrimps and rice with fish and mango salad. Yum! We took the food to the beach and enjoyed our food while looking at a beautiful blue see and white beach with palm trees.

We then drove back to pick up Emu from work and headed to Waikiki for some slacklining (David)

and reading in the hammock (Tamar)

while watching the sunset. For dinner we went to a Japanese restaurant and ate delicious authentic food. To let the food digest a little we walked along Waikiki boulevard before we went home. There are crazy big resorts over there with everything you need within the resort, so you never need to leave the place. To bad if you ask us, because how will you then ever really experience the beauty of the island? But hey, what do we know about holidays…

Hiking
The next day it was raining in the morning, so after bringing Emu to work, we took time to sort out a dive trip for the next day. When that was sorted out we drove to Kapena falls for a nice little walk through a forest to see a small waterfall (and for Tamar to be eaten alive by mosquitoes).

As we did not have much time left after that for our next appointment, we drove to Waikiki for a little read in the hammock

and on the way to Emu’s work we had a small bite to eat. Alyssa picked us up at Emu’s work for a hike and we met Gaby at the hike site. We hiked the pill box trail and saw sunset from up there, meaning we finished the hike in the dark. Great hike with great company!

After the hike Alyssa brought us to our next host at Kaneohe for the following two nights, Lauren. As we were so tired we didn’t go out for drinks any more with the rest of the gang, but stayed home chatting with Lauren and went to bed at a reasonable time. You know you’re getting wiser (read: older) when you really really look forward to a sleep.

Diving and stand up paddling
Beep, Beep, Beep, the alarm woke us at 5 am for our morning dive. We drove to the pick up site in Josh’s car (partner of Lauren, how awesome are these people lending us their cars?? Can’t wait to repay the favour when they come and visit in The Netherlands).

At the dock there were a lot of homeless people. These people (whole families with children) sleep in their car, a common sight in the US, but very shocking and uncommon for us to see. A particularly contrast was a guy cleaning his jetski right beside a car with homeless children inside.

The boat from Kaimana Divers picked us up at 7 am and we drove with 4 other customers to the first dive site, YO 257 and San Pedro shipwreck.

The company had brought us excellent dive gear and that made the dives extra pleasant. At the first dive we saw beautiful fishes and two turtles, with 30m visibility. As we surfaces, there was a turtle right next to us on the shore and 70m away there was a whale jumping out of the water. Awesome! The second dive was at Horseshoe Reef. There we saw many eels in the coral, turtles, a very large trumpet fish and a frog fish. No photos, just image awesome stuff 😉

After the two dives we did some shopping for dinner and then we drove home. We tried to get out of the house again, but we were to tired, so we chilled a bit at home before we took the stand up paddle board and went to the beach for some action.

We both did it, was really great. Looking forward to doing it a lot more in the future! Dinner time rolled around and we cooked a nice meal for Lauren and Emu to thank them for hosting us and many laughs over dinner. David had asked the neighbour for some fresh coconuts,

so we had chocolate and coconut for dessert. Pretty amazing combination!

Road trip and slacklining
Finally some sleep. We left the house around 12 pm for a drive around the island with the car of Josh. We some many cool spots underway (paradise looking beaches and yummy food stands). We stopped to see a natural Arch, at Laie point and we looked a while at the surfers at Pipeline, who were challenging 15m high waves. And sometimes loosing….

We ended the day with some slacklining with the whole gang at Kailua beach park.

And then moved in at our airbnb for the night, at a beautiful spot at Hawaii Kai. Where we met our very kind host and enjoyed our private room.

Rock climbing, eating and slacklining
We had a relaxing breakfast at the garden of our airbnb with an amazing view and the dogs kept us company. Emu picked us up at 9 in the morning to get some climbing shoes. We met Alyssa and Benji at the climbing spot at Makapuu lookout. We hiked up there and climbed for a few hours.

It was really awesome. We had great view over the coast, we saw lots of whales and the climbing gave so much energy. After climbing we went to one of the famous Ono restaurants (for raw fish and rice, called poke. Really delicious)

and after that we had the popular Hawaiian shave ice.

As if that was not enough we managed to put more activities in our last day at paradise. We headed off to Waikiki beach for some slacklining and last beach time.

Then we went for dinner with everyone, said our goodbyes to our new friends and then the amazing Emu brought us to the airport. Goodbye Hawaii, Aloha cold cold Canada…