Hawaii

06/07/16 - 25/07/16

We flew from Los Angeles LAX straight to Honolulu, on the main island of Oahu in Hawaii which was a long 7 hour flight filled with crying children.. not what you want. We arrived and after a lengthily wait for our driver, got to our hostel Waikiki Beachside Hostel, where we were greeted by our friend Hana who we met on the Contiki USA tour. She had previously been there a week and had one more week there to spend with us. We settled into our hostel rooms and went straight to the beach. On our first proper day, we decided to rent mopeds. At the time it seemed a great idea, in hind site, still a great idea yet probably should have used our brains a bit more.. you’ll see. We rented them for two days. On the first day we got to grips with them, which for the hiring staff was a worrying site with one of them telling Nicola he ‘fears for her life!’ Good to hear. Anyway after some practice we were pretty confident and went exploring locally. We did get lost numerous times but all in all it was a good day and we got to see some cute locations over the beach. We went to Hanauma Bay, which is a very popular beach, also a nature reserve, where you can pay $7 to get in and sunbathe or swim in the crystal clear sea with all the reserved coral reefs and local tropical fish. Day 2 was the day where it started to go wrong. We set off at 8.30am and went straight past Hanauma Bay and continued around the coast, stopped off at various pretty locations for rest breaks and a lunch stop. We ended up on a beach called Kaiona Beach Park, which was a very quiet beach with no one in sight and we stayed here for a few hours before continuing on. This is where we got confused.. We then continued to bike around the island, not realising how far we had to go with us thinking ‘yeah, we’ll just ride around the island’. 5 hours of non stop riding, 3 rain storms and countless close mental breakdowns we finally arrive back at the hostel, 9.15pm, absolutely sodden from the rain. At one point I thought my bike was going to give up on me because it was making some weird noises, little did I know I had hours of riding in the rain to go. After that 13 hour day of riding, we were done with the mopeds hahaha! At least we got some cute photos, right? We also took a trip to the beautiful Manoa trail, where the end point is the Manao waterfall. This was super beautiful and totally worth the sweaty hike!!

Hanauma Bay

Manoa Falls

Whilst Hana was still with us, we also took a naughty trip to the premium outlet store. Or heaven, as we liked to call it. However, this didn’t start as smoothly as it ended. We firstly got on a bus,  which was only $2.50 to the outlet, absolute bargain we thought. An hour in, we ask the bus driver how long it takes to get there. Only another 2 hours he said. Our faces. Baring in mind we had to get there before it shut, and then get home, we got off at the next stop and re-assessed the situation. Finally finding wifi we called for an uber to take it there, no messing about, which is when we met the love of our life, our Uber driver named Jeff. Although Jeff kept texting me telling us he was going to be late because of the traffic, and then again to ask where we were and then again once more (which was costing me to receive, thanks Jeff…) he turned out to be the nicest man, offering us iPhone charging and water as soon we got in (both were necessary). After chatting a while to Jeff telling him about our moped disaster, he drops the bombshell that there are no Uber drivers near the outlets so we wouldn't be able to get home. Panic stricken, he then says ‘but you have saved me a trip.. I wanted to come to the outlets so you guys shop for 2 hours and I’ll wait for you and take you home and not charge you on Uber, just give me 20 bucks’. Yes Sir Jeff! Bless him, so he waited for us whilst we shopped (we shopped hard, a designer bag may have been purchased - cheap as though!) and took us home. We tipped him gratefully as he got us back to our hostel. He really was the best. 5* for Jeff.

Moped fun

Hana sadly left on the 14th, but somehow we managed to convince our Australian friend Katie, who we also met on the USA tour to come out and see us for a few days. She booked into a hotel and kindly let us stay (hotel of dreams) and our days had the same sort of pattern. Lie in, get up, get food, sunbathe on beach, come back to hotel and nap, eat more food and drink champagne. Not a bad line up I’ll say! We had various late night McDonalds trips, a few naughty Victoria Secret and Sephora trips, a few more trips to Macy’s where the sunglasses hut lady loved us, and lots of nice food at the Cheesecake Factory. Sadly, after Katie extended her stay in the hotel and negotiated with her airline, Katie had to leave us. So sad to see her go, although already excited to see her in January when we go to Sydney, we waved her off goodbye and went back to the prison life a.k.a hostels. We only had a few nights left before we jetted off to our next location, Fiji, for some more fun in the sun!

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