Kapolei, HI

Tue 22nd Dec

Today was Chrysler 300 C day. Matt and Annabelle had a car booked for the day and they set off for their day excursion after their 7 am car pick up.

The rest of us had our, what was becoming, usual routine. Exercise for Mark, Mary and Ali and a sleep-in for Tom.

We decided that we would explore the east side of the island today. This itinerary included walking the 1 hr loop of the Manoa trail up to the 100 foot waterfall, the biggest waterfall on the island. This proved to be a worthwhile activity with a decent bit of exercise and an added sinus clearing experience involving a stop at the compost toilet.

The next stop on this itinerary invoked heading to Hanauma Bay for some snorkeling. That was until we discovered this area is closed on a Tuesday :-(. However, we decided to do a drive-by anyway but, sure enough, it was closed. Kailua Beach Park was only a 30 min drive further up the coast and boasted of a great canoeing opportunity and so that got plugged into the sat nav. This proved to be a rather long and fruitless trip though as there was an enormous amount of traffic making the going very slow. We were later to find out this was due to the Obama clan venturing around the same area. We eventually made it t the Beach Park but were very underwhelmed as it was rather windy and unpleasant and with little on offer by way of food. The one and only food offering was a restaurant opposite the park with a 40 min wait and, given that we were already rather hangry by this stage, this was clearly too long to wait. The toilet block at this high-profile tourist stop proved interesting and was very much at odds with the accompanying headline for this area. We then did something I never thought we’d do in Hawaii……we headed to McDonalds for our lunch to get rid of the ‘hangries’. Matt and Annabelle just happened to see us driving by, what are the odds of that…….go figure!!! and they swung by the Maccas to catch up with us. They then headed on up to the North Shore whilst we headed home. The rest of our afternoon was spent by the pool for a while and then down at the sunset bar to watch… you guessed it…. the sunset.

There were Christmas Carols on in the lobby from 6.30-7 pm but we planned to watch these from our balcony.

Matt and Annabelle arrived home by about 6 pm and kindly organised our dinner for the night.