So late December my wife and I took a vacation. This was to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary, which was actually in 2014. We had the trip booked for December 2014 but I had a heart attack almost exactly 3 months before our scheduled departure date, so we had to put it off until all my meds were stable enough so that I could get out of country insurance coverage again... So we flew from Toronto to LA, and then on to Honolulu. We have been to Hawaii before while in transit to Australia, but I have only ever stayed overnight. My wife has been to Maui a couple of times for conferences, but this was our first real vacation there. We stayed in Waikiki, which was quite touristy, but we were down at the East end that was less built up and close to a park with some green space. For us, much nicer than the "full service" resorts down the other end. Here is a view from our room looking towards Diamond head, and then another down to the beach: Some of green space on one of our walks: We drove all over the island, so some pics from our travels... I love birds, and when I spotted this Red-Whiskered Bulbul, I had to get out the telephoto lens and snap a shot: The coastline is quite rugged, but beautiful: We are not "lay on the beach" people, but we do love hiking, so a hike up diamond head was a must: If you do this, go early, because it gets very busy! Looking back at Waikiki: I really enjoyed driving along the North Shore...the surf was certainly up: Of course even though I work on watches for a living, I can't pass up a watch store...even an Omega boutique. When I walked in I was greeted by a nice sales associate who asked me if I was familiar with Omega's product line. I said yes, I'm a watchmaker and I work on Omegas almost every day. Then the conversation turned to them looking for a watchmaker for the boutique...despite my wife hinting that I should take the job, I am back in snowy Canada...if I was going to the dark side and work for a brand, this would be a nice location! We did spend time on 2 other islands, so more later... Cheers, Al
Thanks for the pictures Al. I won a couple of trips to Maui and loved it. Took my wife and kids. One day we were walking along a beach and an ambulance was using a gurney for an elderly lady. She had expired on the beach in her bikini. My wife was sad until I pointed out that it was the perfect place to go! Along that same beach under the moonlight, I asked my wife "If this is paradise, what would you change?" She pondered for a moment, then said "Nothing!" Glad you enjoyed yourself. Also saw Pearl Harbor and where my dad flew into during WW2 in a PBY.
We did do a bit of Pearl Harbor, but we had to catch a flight to the next island so we didn't spend a ton of time there. What we did see was great though.
Great pictures Al, love the crater shot! The Hawaiian Islands is one of my favorite places on Earth. Have family in Kona on the Big Island and lucky enough to get to visit now and again.
Big Island is by far and away my favourite...photos from there will be coming soon! We stayed not far outside Kona...
The last island we went to was Maui, so some pics from there...will save the Big Island for last. We stayed at a resort, which to be honest was my least favourite place to stay on this trip. It was also very expensive, and had a ton of things to do on site. We rarely stay on resorts, so once again in the car and off we went. I love pineapple, so I ate it every day we were on the islands. We went to the Dole plantation on Oahu, but that was a bit contrived, so while on Maui we did the Maui Gold company tour - so a tour of a real production site and much less of a fabricated tourist attraction. Here the workers are harvesting in the fields - looks like reasonably tough work as each fruit is hand picked: Of course the guide cut us several fresh pineapples at various stages of ripeness, and you could certainly taste the difference in how the flavor develops over time. Best pineapple I've ever had! Across the road there was a glass blowing studio, and a distillery, so we went to both. The distillery wasn't much to see, and the samples were okay, but nothing to write home about. The glass blowing place was great though, and it is something I have always thought I would like to do at some point, but have never gotten around to it. Of course some of the glass was island themed, and the glass waves were quite popular. We ended up having one shipped back - it's cool. Some of the pieces were much more complex than those above, but priced accordingly... Lots of nice views as we drove around the island... The biggest attraction for us was the Road to Hana. Something like 50 miles long, 600+ curves in the road, and 50 odd one lane bridges to cross. Leave early - the road is crowded, and it takes time to get where you want to be. You would not want to drive it at night! Some shots from various stops along the way: Sorry - sideways...my wife loved these painted gum trees... The banana bread was good! Waterfalls along the road were pretty common: Pi'ilanihale Heiau temple in the Kahanu Gardens. Tough to get an idea of scale, but this is "yuge" as some would say... More amazing shore line: Of course all the islands are volcanic, and there are lava tubes everywhere. Some are accessible, so we did go through one on the Big Island, and one here on Maui as well. Hard to get a feel for the scale, but the ceiling was at times only a just over 1 m feet tall and you had to duck to go through, but here it's more like 10 m tall: Spotted some turtles too: This sunset over the mountains was pretty nice: We hiked the bamboo forest: The trail leads to a series of waterfalls, each more difficult to get to than the last: This is the last one we made it to (I think the 4th out of 6). Note on the left side you might be able to see a rickety looking wooden ladder: This gives you some scale - sorry my wife does not usually take the photos and when she does...well... So for us to get to this point, we had to cross a fairly sheer mud hill using bamboo as our only support from falling. Then I went further, and if you look above where I'm standing on the ladder, there is a rope you have to use to get up the rock face. What you can't see is that to get to the bottom of the ladder I had already used a rope to climb another rock face. I knew that from here getting to the next waterfall would require swimming...again I swim like a rock...so we stopped here. I don't think going up the last rope would have been a problem, but I was more worried about going down it, especially with muddy shoes! Unfortunately Jacqui did take a tumble as she was trying to find an alternate route back from this point, and ended up falling in the river.. I think now a couple of months later she finally has most of her back issues sorted out from that fall. Apparently this trail is the place where the most search and rescue calls happen in Maui. I can see why! Cheers, Al
Amazing photos Al! I knew you mastered macro photographing, but now we know that you can also do landscape! You seem to have had a great trip, and it was well earned, considering what you have been through. I must put up Hawaii on my short list for future vacation trips!
The picture of the surfer is stunning, one of the best I have ever seen! Trim off the bottom third of the picture and it would be perfect (for me anyway).
Thanks. When I had a print made of this shot I did do some editing to remove a good amount of the bottom...all these are just done with bulk processing to jpeg from the raw files, so not a lot of tweaking on most.
Again beautiful pics Al, did you guys stop at the Seven Sacred Pools on the way to Hana? These are seven pools of water that flow into each other via little waterfalls, quite picturesque! You can swim in them and the water is usually quite warm. There's also a bridge right there that people jump off of all day long, the last time we were there there was a line to do so, for me...no thanks!
I think there was something about those being closed if I recall correctly. I think those are the hikes a bit past Hana, and by the time we finally made it to Hana itself, we had to turn around to get back before dark, so no we didn't do those.
Al, What a time you had! so beautiful. I've traveled a lot over the years for fun, to many cool places, but I never went to Hawaii until recently, because I didn't think it would have a 'cultural' vibe, or much diversity in scenery, but boy was I wrong! And your pics certainly show this, too. Thank you so much for sharing these I'm glad Jacqui is OK, and I really look forward to the Big Island photographs! It was my favorite island, too, especially the planetarium and volcano...
