Day 32 : Diamond Head Crater, Oahu
What better way to finish your stay in Hawaii than by attempting a 560 feet (170 metres) climb up the ridge of a volcanic crater in 80°F (27°C) heat along a track 0.8 miles (1.3 kilometres) long with 2 tunnels and 227 steps? We couldn't think of anything better, so, this morning, we set off for the Diamond Head State Monument to make the climb.
Near the start of the trail you can see the point to which you are heading. It's the small dot about three-quarters of the way up the photo at left, near the right edge. The steepness of the hill necessitates a decidedly circuitous route to the top. The path zigs and zags in a series of switchbacks which end at the first of the staircases; 74 steep steps barely wide enough for two people to pass and with only a short plateau about halfway up.
Next, grab your torch and navigate your way through a 225-foot (68 metre) long tunnel with only the light from your torch and a railing with reflective tape to guide you.
Then comes a set of 99 steps, which look so much better in the photo at right - that is, as you're about to descend - than they do from the bottom as you're about to ascend them. Thoughtfully, the steps have been numbered to make it easier for the paramedics to pinpoint your location - "He's prostrate across steps 52 through 54. We've got him wedged so he doesn't roll to the bottom. Over.".
Finally, climb a two-storey, narrow, spiral staircase, then duck your head to emerge into the light, climb another thirty or so steps, and you're done. In every sense of the word.
Ah, but the views are worth it. Truly panoramic views that take in downtown Waikiki, Waikiki Beach and Honolulu, and which give you a real sense of just how high you've climbed. The photo at left is an example of the view from the top. We don't know the name of the beach, but it certainly looked spectacular and, oddly, unused. Maybe the box jellyfish are still about.
What we definitely did not expect at the top of the ridge were insects. Thousands of them from a half-dozen or so different species swarmed all over us and everybody else. One especially nasty variety was an elongated flying ant which had, so I discovered, nippers that it would bury into your skin if it felt at all threatened. Evidently I threatened two of them. Why the insects were only in any great numbers at the summit, I don't know. Maybe they liked the view.
Speaking of views, here's another one. This one is towards Waikiki and Honolulu. The beach you can see is Waikiki Beach. And the dramatic cloud-formation seems to be a feature of Oahu; we've seen skies like this on almost every day we've been here.
Undoubtedly, the views from the top made the effort of the climb worthwhile, even with the bugs as a welcoming party. With such vistas, it's not surprising that the summit has been used as a lookout for the coastal defence of Oahu (the spiral staircase is left over from the time when it was used for this purpose).
The return descent was much easier than the ascent. It's at times like this that I'm thankful that Gravity is a Law. At the end of the trail we walked through the entry tunnel, down the hill, and then hopped onto a bus that was crowded to capacity. I was so far towards the front of the bus that, for a time, I had to move my backside whenever the driver wanted to turn right.
This afternoon we headed back to the beach. We just wanted to make sure that the lifeguard finished on-time at 5 o'clock sharp. Well, we don't want the lifeguards getting stressed now do we?
(The next blog probably won't be for a while - we check out tomorrow morning and catch the plane home early in the hours of Friday morning.)
Day 31 : Ala Moana Beach, Oahu
We've now been in Hawaii for over a week, so we thought it about time we participated in the State's most popular activity : lazing by the beach. It was mid-afternoon by the time we arrived, so we only had a couple of hours before the lifeguard went off-duty. Beach patrolling in Hawaii is, literally, a 9 to 5 job, and there are no extensions to these hours regardless of the number of people swimming or the number of remaining hours of sunshine. The lifeguards must have a great union.
The early evening was quite overcast - obviously a common phenomenon here - which made for high contrast conditions of reflected Sun and shadowy bathers. The photo on the left gives you some idea of what it was like.
Ala Moana Beach, in stark contrast with the nearby Waikiki Beach, is pleasantly uncrowded. It has less of the glitz and pretense of Waikiki Beach and much more of a family feel to it. While we were there, for example, a family of about four or five started up a charcoal barbecue behind us. At the same time, in the water, small kids played with their mums or their dads. Few, if any, of the beautiful people were in sight.
Debbie went into the water a couple of times and I stayed on the beach and read the local paper. Hawaii enjoys an exceptionally low crime rate and this, of course, makes a newspaper editor's life very difficult. Today's lead story was written around comparative statistics for various aspects of Hawaiian life, drawing on data from the 1990 and 2000 US Censuses.
It's surprising how much poverty there is in Hawaii. Nearly 11 percent of people in the State earn less than the amount deemed to be poverty-level. A decade ago the figure was about 8 percent.
House prices have risen dramatically too. Over 40 percent of homes are now valued at more than US$300,000; a decade ago only 35 percent of homes were in this category.
My favourite story though was about a parolee who drove to his reporting officer in a stolen car. His friends had tipped-off the reporting officer and the parolee was arrested as he parked the vehicle.
All this reading and lazing was hard work and left me feeling quite dozy. I wonder if the Census asked Hawaiians how much time they spend snoozing by the beach?
Originally posted by TC
