Hawaii Trip - Driving Around Oahu

We took a drive around Oahu one day to explore the coastline and get out of the chaos of the city.  The East coast was much more pleasant - less people and lots of beautiful scenery.  The area past Makaou'u point was our first stop as the rocks were beaconing us to go climb around on them.






Next we stopped at the Byodo-In Temple.  This temple was in the back of the Valley of the Temples Memorial Park, so we had to pass through all of these different cultural cemeteries to get there.  The temple was gorgeous and well worth the stop.  It was built as a smaller replica of one in Japan with the perfect mountain backdrop behind it.  The grounds were beautiful and we enjoyed seeing the Australian black swans that were brought to the temple as a gift. 






Farther along the East Coast we stopped for lunch and to check out the view of the Chinaman's Hat.

The North side was a bit busier again, but we decided to stop near Shark's Bay to have a splash in the water.  Phil did a bit of snorkelling and I did some rock hopping and shade lounging to avoid getting fried.  It was a pretty spot, but quite crowded by our spoiled Aussie beach standards :)



We headed back to Waikiki for dinner, excited to have happy hour drinks inside the local grocery store.  If you ever get the chance to shop at Foodland, go!  It has an amazing selection of sushi, poke, pie, steaks, salad, soups, breads, and a bar where you can get snacks, drinks, and even burgers.  We need a grocery store like this in Australia!




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Baw Baw Blog

Image
A couple weeks ago Phil set out to climb Mt Baw Baw again with a couple like-minded (read: crazy) bike friends.  We drove out with Les and met John and Glenda at the primary school in Drouin to start the ride.   The crazies started on their ride while John and I headed off to explore the area by car. Phil, Glenda, and Les at the start About 10km in to the ride, as they passed the Drouin West primary school, Phil realised that that was the place he meant to start, and now an already painful 80km ride had become 90km. John and I stopped at the Noojee Trestle Bridge and took a leisurely walk across.  Then we headed on to the "town" of Noojee and saw the sights - the water wheel that no one knows the origin of.  Then we enjoyed some lamingtons while we waited for the tiers to catch up.  They arrived and took a few minutes' break, then set out again on their adventure. Noojee Trestle Bridge Noojee Water Wheel John and I then drove to Tooronga Falls and had a re
Read more

One Sleep Until Citizenship!

Image
In January of 1649, Thos Morgan, my great great ..... grandfather, signed the death warrant for King Charles I, an act that in normal times would make him guilty of treason for conspiring against the monarchy.  He ended up fleeing to America, where he changed his last name to Carrier in order to avoid being sent back to England for trial.  Of course, later he married a woman who was tried and hung for being a witch, but that's another story... Three hundred and sixty two years later, I found myself taking a new job in Australia.  In order to get my work visa, I had to pledge allegiance to the monarchy of the same country that my ancestor fled from so many years ago.  And tomorrow, I'll take the Australian Citizenship Pledge and become a dual citizen. Besides the physical move, there were a lot of little details involved in getting to this point.  We arrived on a skilled worker visa, which required providing my resume and degree in addition to the lengthy application and emp
Read more

Missy and Emily's Tassie Trip - Launceston

Image
The second day of this Tassie trip was spent in Launceston.  We drove over from Cradle Mountain in the morning and stopped to sample some local cheese along the way.   Ashgrove cheese for some delicious samples  After the drive over we were quite thirsty so of course had to stop at a couple local wineries.  Launceston is one of our favourite places to go to stock up the wine fridge and enjoy the beautiful scenery and food along the way. Josef Chromy Winery for some Sparkling After lunch we went to Platypus House Seahorse World to check out some of the local critters.  Platypus are really difficult to see in the wild; in the nine years we've been here we've only seen one from far away.  So it was a treat to see them up close and watch them scuttle around.   Mr. Platypus The absolute best thing about Platypus House though are the echidnas!  Echidnas are actually the closest living thing to the platypus, though they look far from it.  They are actually near
Read more