Saturday, June 1st
First full day is in the books, and it was a great one! 🙂
Started early on the balcony, as I mentioned yesterday:
By 6/6:30 we headed down for tea/coffee. The boys were also up really early and decided to go to the gym at 4:50 am. 😆
Beach Morning
Ivan took Asher to an ABC store (the very common and popular convenience store here- we have like 3 within a block of our hotel) to buy a boogie board. Ethan decided he didn’t want to swim this morning since we didn’t have “that” long before our Diamond Head reservations at 10:00. 🤷♀️
The beach was just beautiful!!! I think we were down there before 7:00 and it was wonderfully quiet and empty.
I thoroughly enjoyed my tea on a towel and texted a few pics to Lisa and chatted with her for a couple minutes. 🙂
Asher got some great waves (and fortunately a few other people were out there too, which made me feel better since Ethan wasn’t swimming with him.)
My parents came down too and we spent at least an hour and half down on the beach. I’m not sure there is anything better than a beautiful morning on a beach?
Ethan and Ivan and I walked down the beach a ways to just see what we could see while my parents sort of supervised Asher. 🙂
Finally we had to head back, since like I said, we had Diamond Head hike reservations at 10:00.
We decided to just grab a quick “breakfast” from the ABC Store. The hotel has a restaurant but it’s like, $25+ a person or something. Um, pass. I mean maybe once, sure, but every day?? No way.
Asher got some sort of Philly Cheesesteak… Ethan got a $6 PBJ, and I got this:
Paired it with a Core Power to round out the nutrition a little, hahaha. (Not going to lie, this meal tasted delicious. The Core Power was $5.69 which is almost $3 more than at home, but oh well. It was less than $25! Haha.)
Diamond Head
We headed out by 9:30 to get to our reservation- a quick 15 minute drive or so.
I had paid for parking and tickets already so off we went.
Part of our choice in coming to Oahu for our first visit was to see some of the “iconic” Hawaii sights, like the ones from the movies that are world famous.
Diamond Head is definitely one of those! I’m so glad we did this, because it was super cool and just beautiful.
The hike was a lot of uphill, but mostly paved, and also included several fun little extras, like walking through these fun tunnels.
There are several lookouts on the way up before reaching the top of the summit.
The final ascent!
The views from the top are out of this world! So, so amazing.
On the other side, you can perfectly see the entire ring of the crater! We didn’t actually realize that Diamond Head is a the peak of a crater rim. Really neat.
I like this pic of the boys looking out. 🙂
Here’s a cool pic of my dad. My mom was somewhere taking a picture…
On the way back down we crawled through this old war bunker.
Heading down:
It took us a total of about 2 hours from start to finish to do the 1.6 mile loop, including lots of photo stops and rest breaks! It was hot too!
Kona Brewing Company
It was after 12 by the point. We didn’t have any big plans for the rest of the day. Figured we’d maybe check out a couple beaches in this area?
First we decided to stop for lunch at Kona Brewing Company, located on this beautiful marina with stunning views of the mountains behind.
I got a Kona Lite which was mango flavored and very refreshing!
I loved our table and the views. Definitely recommend this place and we want to maybe go back on Monday when they have a “beer and burger for $20” deal!
I got this chicken and rice dish which I can’t remember the name of, but it was basically like a teriyaki sauce. Really good and bonus-felt healthier/higher protein than some of the other options I was eying. 😉
Halona Blow Hole and Halona Cove
After lunch, we drove up the road 5-8 minutes to the Halona Blow Hole lookout. This is a beautiful spot!
Its claim to fame is this hole in the rock where the waves crash in and it shoots a stream of water up in the air like a hose spray. I didn’t really capture a good picture, and I don’t think the waves were crashing at “full capacity”, even though it was pretty windy and rough.
From here, we hiked down a short steep “trail” to Halona Cove. This is a gorgeous spot but technically I guess you’re not really supposed to go down there or at least swim there. I can see why- the waves crash into a small cove and it could be highly dangerous if you swam and got slammed into the rocks.
It was really wavy and rough and we were NOT planning to enter the water nor climb on any rocks. Many other (stupid??) people were… fortunately everyone seemed okay but it seemed like one of those things that could go wrong very quickly.
We just enjoyed the beautiful view from a safer/smarter distance. 🙂
There’s also this cool lava tube down there!
After a bit we headed back up:
We planned to maybe stop to boogie board at another beach over there, maybe Sandy Beach which is nearby. We drove by, but being Saturday afternoon, it was PACKED. It was also quite windy and the waves looked pretty rough.
The boys kind of just wanted to go back to “our” beach where Asher had had good luck boogie boarding in the morning.
We made a sort of quick Costco stop and another grocery store stop for a couple snacks and breakfast items.
Beach
We regrouped a bit back at the hotel and then went down to the beach! It was around 5 pm now so we had at least 2 hours until sunset.
I took Ethan to buy a boogie board too. The beach was suuuuper crowded compared to the morning. Like crazy busy! I tried to not let this bother me. 😉 It was still beautiful. I know there are much less crowded areas on Oahu (if you drive a ways) but this was close and convenient and worked well for the boys to boogie board. Besides, I knew this Waikiki area would be hopping… that’s part of its “vibe”.
A little misty rain shower moved in close to sunset. The boys and my parents headed back to hotel and Ivan and I lingered a while just relaxing. We were suddenly very sleepy! 7 pm is midnight on Wisconsin time…
Back up in the room, I took a shower and came out to find everyone had crashed! At like 8 pm. Hahaha. We weren’t really planning to go out to dinner anyway- we had bought some stuff at the store.
I ended up sitting out on the balcony alone for a while eating some cheese and crackers which was actually quite perfect. 😉
And then I think I was in bed by 9/9:30 myself!
We have only seen a fraction of Oahu so far but what we have seen has been beautiful!! Today we head to the north/east side for some more exploring. 🙂
GRATEFUL KAE 
I just texted this to my sister in case there are some family friendly things to do. The early part of the diamond head path looks like it might be stroller friendly? I have only been to Maui so this is all new to me. I would have loved to go to Pearl Harbor but we opted to stay on Maui for our honeymoon so we could soak up that area. The blow hole area reminds me of some of the area on the road to Hana. I think there is one area in particular where swimming is forbidden for a similar reason!
$20 for a beer and burger sounds like a steal!! Even though I don’t/can’t drink beer, we love going to breweries. We went to one down by Kehei (sp?) and it had a fun outdoor area with large connect 4 games, etc. We also went to a winery in Maui kind of by the volcano and that was fun. I bought some wine to bring home. They packed it up for us in a special box. It was a fun thing to bring back and enjoy with friends that summer.
It sounds dreamy to walk on the beach with Ivan while your parents loosely watched Asher! Meanwhile I went for a walk with a friend this morning with Taco in the stroller and we stopped at a beach of the lake we walked by and of course taco sat in the water fully clothed. What was I thinking stopping at the beach. But he was begging to get out and walk. Oh well, not the end of the world. I had grabbed pastries for a couple on our block that had a baby so was mostly worried he would drip through the stroller but our Bob is very well lined so the treats stayed dry. It was nice to get out and talk with a friend.
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ABC stores! I haven’t thought about them in years. When I lived on Oahu for a summer in college we would get these beach mats made of straw for like $1. They were way better than towels on the sand. You can also get all the slippers (what people in Hawaii call flipflops) there you could ever possibly want.
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What a great day, I LOVE exploring beaches like those- in the Great Ocean Road in Victoria Australia (my home state) there are dramatic cliffs, beaches etc with blow holes like those. No lava tubes though! That’s very cool. And what a fabulous beach to have to yourself in the morning! Now I want to visit Hawaii! We flew over it on my way from Brisbane to Vancouver recently, so I know it’s actually not THAT far (9 hours maybe?).
WHY do hotel breakfasts insist on always being SO expensive? I think they would get more diners if they had different price options. We often just buy some snacks/fruit to have as breakfast on holiday too. 🙂
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Morning in the beach sounds lovely! Those pics of Hawaii look a lot like Australian ocean drive view, so relaxing and beautiful. The hike sounds like fun and so well organized with paved road? what a luxury. in Asia, most of hike is on dirt and not well marked, like more rustic.
I really enjoy those solo moments when traveling with the family, to regroup, to reflect, to recharge. cheese and cracker sounds perfect to end the day.
jet lag sounds intense! hahah…
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Ah, it all sounds amazing!!! And the photos are beautiful. And, I think it’s so great that your parents come on these trips with you. Okay… I’m heading off to read the next day (somehow I got behind on my blog reading!)
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Oh, I remember the Diamond Head Hike so well… I am so glad you got to do this and time on the beach as well. It all sounds fantastic! Love all the photos.
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