Transition Phase: Oahu Part 1

Landed at Honolulu Airport, drove to Friend 1's house in Nu'uanu.

View from Friend 1's back porch; looks out on Koolau mountains (which up the Pali Highway, forms the area where the Pali Lookout is.


The following are pictures from the Nuuanu Pali Lookout. Pali means "cliff"; the lookout is on a 985 foot cliff overlooking part of the island (Kaneohe Bay, Chinaman's Hat) and the Koolau Mountain range with it's steep cliffs and cutouts. The Pali Pass goes through the mountain and forms a wind tunnel. When you are at the lookout the winds rush to really high speeds, so much so that you typically have to secure your camera, bags, and sunglasses; clothes billow in the wind, and on certain days you can lean into the wind and be propped up without falling forward. (Note to the ladies: you'll put on a show if you wear a skirt, because you ain't going to be hiding any of the goods in that wind.) It's usually very hard to hear others talking up there (probably another reason I like it - no tourist chatter in the background) because you hear a ton of white noise as the wind swooshes past your ears.

History of the place: the story of the Pali involves a bloody battle fought in the struggle for control of the islands a long while back. As King Kamehameha I fought to unite the islands under his rule, during a bloody battle, he pushed the warriors defending Oahu up to the Nu'uanu Pali, where he drove the remaining ones over the edge of the cliff to fall 900+ feet to their deaths. After that, he was in position to take Oahu under his rule, making this one of the key battles in Hawaiian history. So neat to be in a place with such historic significance and such an all-senses experience.
The valley. Kaneohe Bay on left (not fully pictured).

Koolau Mountains; note bottom left, you can see one of the Pali tunnels. (Pali Highway connects Honolulu/Waikiki side of the island with the opposite; faster than driving the perimeter of the island.) The highway (before it was a highway) was first a foot trail walking around the steep clidffs, then horse trail (narrow); then a 1 lane dirt road, before it was finally paved into a 2 lane road (then again expanded to 2 lanes each side).

Chinaman's Hat rock formation.

Next: Phase II: Australia, October 22

Phase I: Maui

Arrived Kahului, Maui October 14, 2008

Sunset on first night!

Location I.A: Polo Beach Club, Wailea, Maui

View from inside condo. The line running down the middle of the picture is the window; this is actually a corner where 2 panes of glass meet, so you get the panoramic view. If you look past the lamp, the far island is Kahoolawe (uninhabited; used to be used for military training of munitions), the closer half-moon shaped one is Molokini (very small, big reef surrounding, lots of snorkeling).
Took a trip to Lanai on October 18. Took ferry boat from Lahaina Harbor, West Maui (Approx 45 minutes from Wailea), over to Lanai. Population of Lanai is approximately 3,000. There are 2 major resorts on Lanai, which is the only source of income for the island. Both resorts are Four Seasons properties, the Manele Bay resort (near harbor ~15 minute walk along a beach trail to get there) and Koele Lodge (other end of island - shuttle between the two). Beautiful little island, we found that surfers would take the ferry over to the island to ride the waves there if a swell was coming in. Not huge waves, but appeared to be a good spot that was less busy than the usual surf locations.

View from Manele Bay resort down to the Bay.

Took the Four Seasons shuttle over the mountain to the Koele Lodge - a beautiful property with fantastically manicured grounds. Quiet and serene location.

View from lobby to back grounds, behind the fountain is a lake. This is the entryway to the rest of the grounds.

View from lakeside to Lodge.

View across lake, authentic pagoda on the left.

Stream running through grounds, stand of bamboo on left where wild turkeys grazed.

Waterfall on grounds

As I walked the grounds, this little guy was apparently in the bushes doing whatever the heck it is wild turkeys do when they are out and about. My footsteps across some downed bamboo spooked him, so he started running which in turn scared the crap out of me, sending me running...must have been quite a sight seeing a turkey sprint out of the woods, it breaks right and I break left as we exit, scared of each other. Idiot.
View of West Maui mountains on the boat trip back from Lanai.

Location I.B: Fairmont Kea Lani, Wailea, Maui

Moved over to this hotel for the last 2 days on the island. Stayed down the hall from my parents. Pretty sweet room; had a big lanai, sitting room, wet bar, separate bedroom, huge bathroom w/ jacuzzi tub - crazy stuff. View from porch of suite towards ocean. The building on the left side of the picture is the Polo Beach Club, where I stayed the first 4 days.

View towards mountains from the back door of the room (to hallway). Those funny white things, well, if you know me, you know what I immediately thought they looked like. Looked like it was a tad bit chilly at the hotel...yoink!

View of sunset from lanai. Traveled the 28 miles up to the Haleakala Crater at an elevation of 10,023 feet. Started the 2 mile hike down the Sliding Sands trail to view the crater and a few cinder cones from inside. An aweesome sight. It's so quiet - no people noise or airplane noise, and hardly any wind. You're walking on trails and sand-like substances that makes it feel like you are on Mars. Unlike any place I've been before, and if I had the time, I would have spent several more days there exploring. Awe-inspiring, and the pictures below don't do it one bit of justice, you have to be there to get the whole experience; the steepness of the slope, looking up to the moon that's still in the sky over the crater, the sound of quiet, and the burning of your lungs and calves at 10,023 feet trying to go down 2 miles (and 2,000 feet) when you aren't acclimatized, then back up in the blazing sun - awesome.
View of the crater from the top (visitor center area). Clouds rolling in.

Descending into the crater; trail can be seen cutting back & forth across at 9 o'clock in the picture. To get perspective on the size of the crater, and how far down, see the white dot at the top of that one hill? That's a person. No joke, I got to my pre-determined stopping area at a certain cinder cone (had something to do that afternoon, so had a schedule to keep on), and thought to myself "Where's the escalator...?" Big, big sigh (and a few swear words) when I knew I'd be heading up by me onesie. :-) However, very random thing happened when I got to my stopping point, I met a guy from the Netherlands, Wolte (Walt in English), who faced the dilemma of going on or heading back up. Now, dum-dum didn't bring ANY water = stupid stupid. So I gave him one of my bottles, and we decided to hike back up together, which was awesome. Good to get to know the guy (professional photographer), we pushed each other to get moving up the steep trail, and I think did better than if each of us were by our onesie. Unexpected event, but wonderful surprise. A rewarding accomplishment. The sights from inside the crater were amazing, but the sound of silence was completely caught me off guard (in a great way) and that still sticks out in my mind as an awe-inspiring high point of the trip.Hard to feel the steepness of this slope from the picture, but every time you turned a corner of a switchback, there was another dang steep slope to go up!

Back up at the summit, above the clouds at this elevation. The road back down goes directly through this cloud.

Driving through the cloud (it got much thicker than this, but I wasn't able to take a picture of it...that whole paying attention and focusing on the road while driving thing can really get hinder the picture-taking process :) A neat experience, but I could barely see the road when in the thick of the cloud so that was a bit nervewracking for a few miles. If you could follow the brake lights of the person in front of you, that made it easier because they had more of the hard part, but in some situations people would actually pull off because they were having such a hard time seeing, just for the purpose of having someone else lead and them follow their tracks. Definitely got stuck in pole position more than once.
After passing through the cloud, looking up at it. Note from these few pictures, how you go from super-bright sunny at the top, through the clouds, and then it looks really nasty cloudy/rainy. So interesting to experience.

Wind Surfers seen on the ocean/beach out front of Mama's Fish House in Paia (small little hippie-like town past the airport. (Had one of the best meals ever for lunch at Mama's!)

Phase I ends on October 21. Depart for transitional phase on Oahu (2 days) prior to departing for Australia. Stayed with a friend who is off the Pali Highway in Nu'uanu (Pali Lookout is one of my favorite places in Hawaii - only about 15-20 minutes from Honolulu & Waikiki. Pictures on that in upcoming entries.)

Take life by the balls tour 2008...

Finally finally finally...back on the continent. I was fortunate enough to have been able to take a wonderful multi-week trip to various islands of Hawaii & Australia. Along the way some long time friends were able to join for a few days here and there which was fantastic and made it all that much more fun. It was one of the most amazing experiences I've had and it taught me quite a lot through the adventures along the way. Most of the time we didn't really go with a definite plan of what to see, where to stay, etc., which made it flexible to wing it. I bought the major airline tickets before leaving, but not all the inter-island ones, in case dates needed to flex or I felt like doing something different. In a few places, we went without knowing where we would stay, called or emailed folks for vacation rentals last minute the day before, then traveled to wherever that was the next day. Not typically how I travel, but it was really nice to not have everything planned out and to float wherever the wind takes you.

Anyway, there's 1200 photos, can't fit all that on one blog, so I've downselected quite a bit. As with any trip I've been on, there are always some good stories...in the interest of putting at least some information out there, I'll do pictures first, stories later.