Events:
· Hot Tub
· Duke’s Breakfast at the Outrigger ($37.31)
· Beach Walk
· Lei Day (we didn’t participate)
· Nap digesting huge breakfast (free)
· Hike to Makapu’u head (about 1 mile each way) ( (free)
· Drove around from Makapu’u to Kailua, came back by Pali Highway
· Drove around downtown, picked up sushi from Sam’s Club deli ($6.44)

Today we again woke early. We went down and hot-tubbed it in our Waikiki Marriott robes (they will provide robes to anyone in the hotel if you call and ask. Comes with cute Waikiki slippers too which you can keep but the robe is $50 if you want to take it home). It is nice and cool in the morning and the hot-tub is just the thing.
Then we showered and headed over to Duke’s at the Outrigger to do their breakfast buffet. It was excellent as always and offers a great open air view of the beach. Not too horribly spendy either, about $14/person + tax and tip. We were so full, we slowly walked back along the beach and waddled up to our rooms and slept for about 3 hours before we could move again! Aughhh… We decided no more breakfast buffets for the week.
Mid afternoon we decided on a hike and picked a fairly short one but with good elevation. We have been using the same guidebook we used last time, Oahu Revealed put out by Wizard Publishing. It had just come out when we came here two years ago and was incredibly right on. There was a brand new update just before this trip too. We weren’t able to get it in time but many of the web-reviews from Wizard helped us make the most of it. This is an incredible book and is spot on. I imagine all their books for each island are just as good too. I highly recommend these books! In this case though, it appears this particular trail has been improved in the last two years. It now has parking and is paved all the way to the lookout. We looked on Google maps later than night and you can see the trail, but you can’t see the parking or improvements. So it must have been pretty recently. Anyway, it is a good mile hike with about 500 foot vertical climb. Not too bad but a good walk at a brisk pace. Makapu’u head is out on the east side and from the top you can see Kailua, Kane’ohe airstation, Rabbit Island, Flat Island, and a few more. Gorgeous views. The light house is a little below you but apparently it is gated off, so we didn’t try to get to it. There are a bunch of pillboxes and gun installments all over along with a memorial to a plane that crashed on the site mistaking the light house for Kane’ohe. Very interesting stuff if you are a war buff. You can do whale watching along this hike from February through April or so. We looked a little, but not very likely there were any lollygagging whales in the environs. Far below, there is the Dragon’s Nostrils along with 5 other blow holes. Apparently they are going off if the wind and tide is just right about one third of the time. We kept an eye out but it didn’t look like much was happening down there so we didn’t go down. We saw a few people down there though. It is funny how things don’t seem quite in perspective sometimes. We saw where the blow holes flat ledge is and it seemed pretty close. Later when we spotted people all the way down there, we could see they were just little specks on the ledge and many were floating in the pools on the ledge and swimming around. So it was much much bigger than what it appeared with no people on it. On the way home, we drove around the Kailua side and came back into Honolulu via the Pali Highway which is maybe my favourite drive across the Koolau Mountains. Spectacular view. We were still pretty full from Duke’s so wanted a light snack more than anything. So we swung by Sam’s Club deli once again and grabbed the daily sushi trays. They were marked down as they were closing so we got about 16 pieces (two trays) with wasabi and shoyu for less than $7.00. It was rather good too! We ate it while we watched a PBS special on “The Mormons” and drifted off to a deep peaceful sleep.

« »