The Hike to the Top of Diamondhead

Last week, we took a day to go hike up to the top of Diamondhead. It is about a 20-25 minute bus ride from where we are in Waikiki, and was actually a very nice hike.

We get off of the bus, and start the short hike up to the entrance to the park. The park costs $1 per person to enter if you come in on foot, or $5 per car. Since we have no car, it's kind of a moot point. But it was nice because there really was not enough parking to handle the amount of cars that were in line when we walked through.

The path starts out as a paved walkway, but very quickly becomes a rocky path that will zig-zag up the peak to move you up the side of the mountain quickly. The sign at the start of the path states it should take between an hour and an hour and a half to get up and back, which was nice to see considering we waited to start the hike until about 10:30ish and it was already getting warm out.

The view from the bottom of the hill. Nothing but switchbacks up quite a ways.










After walking up the switchbacks for probably about 10-15 minutes, we get to a set of stairs.  According to the brochure, 74 concrete steps lead to the first tunnel. The tunnel is about 225 feet, which leads to another stairway, this time of 99 steep steps. At this point, it now leads to a spiral staircase that realistically should only fit traffic going one direction, but is still used for both directions. Once you get to the top of this, it opens into a small room that finally gets you out onto the path up to the top of the peak.

The hike is worth it. All of the following are the view from the paths up to the top, which are all open air. The city pictures are of Waikiki itself.

All in all, it was an excellent hike. We were helped on the way back down the mountain by the fact that a light rain started to fall, and the breeze picked up as well. The craziest part seemed to be the amount of tourists who had no idea that it might actually involve a real hike, as they were all wearing sandals despite it being a hike. Another thing to be checked off that we have now done here in Hawaii.

The Circle Island Tour

On Saturday, we decided to take the bus on the circle island route. The bus in Hawaii is extremely useful, and runs nearly everywhere someone may want to go. Like any other bus, it nay take a little while longer to get some places than it would with a rental car, but there are some definite advantages to the bus. Starting with the low, low price of a monthly pass of $60(compared to 2.25 per trip). For senior ciizens t is even more ridiculous, as they can buy a year pass for $30 total.

The circle island route starts at Ala Moana Shopping Center, and goes up H2 through Mililani and.  On its way towards the north shore of the island and Haleiwa.

Haleiwa is an old plantation town that in recent years has become more of a small shopping area for those looking for something slightly less touristy than Waikiki. Like many of the other places on the island, there is a very quiet beach there.

After getting back on the bus, we continued the tour northeast. The bus follows Kamehameha highway the rest of the way, and we got off at the Turtle Bay resort, which is where the first half of the route ends.

The Turtle Bay resort is a semi-private resort up on Oahu's North Shore. For all intents and purposes, it is a very nice resort, but there really isn't a whole lot out there at that point besides the resort. As a result, nearly all of the guests of the resort go to the beach that is there. We had packed a picnic lunch, and found a shady spot under a tree near the beach to relax and eat.

After taking some pictures on the rocky edge of the beach, we headed back to the bus stop to wait for the next bus going to the windward side of the island. The bus was supposed to run every 30 minutes, so we figured we would not be there for long.

30 minutes went into 45 and nearly an hour passed before the bus we wanted finally arrived. In the meantime, we talked with another person waiting for the bus. An elderly lady, she was definitely a local. She told us that she took this bus just for the views off of the road, and that she thought it was one of the prettiest stretches in all the island. She was right. Around every turn seemed to be another small to mid-size beach, but missing were the tourists. Only the locals really stop at these beaches, she said, since they were so far from Honolulu proper. The most amazing thing to see was the water. Off the windward coast, these beaches were very much untouched, and not really affected by the issues that large quantities of tourists can bring. As a result, we could see at least 4 different shades of blue in the water as we passed it, and was practically clear in a lot of areas.

As the bus ride continued, the elderly lady continued to point out different spots off the side of the road, which realistically we probably would not have really noticed without her there. About halfway back to Honolulu, another local man also began to point out different landmarks along the ride. Essentially, we had a pair of tour guides from the time we left the resort, without having to pay for them. As we came back into the Honolulu area via the Pali Highway, we were shown a couple of locations that we needed to visit at some point during our stay here in Hawaii.

Overall, it was a very interesting trip, and has given us a whole lot of places that we can go visit that are a bit off the beaten path here in Hawaii.