After spending our morning baking on the Diamond Head Crater, we decided to cool off by check out a few more cool sights on the eastern side of Oahu. Our first stop was the Lana’i Lookout where supposedly on a very clear day you can see some of the other Hawaiian islands.All we could see was sea but that made for a pretty picture too. Apparently, this is a very popular place to spread loved ones ashes. President Obama’s grandmother’s ashes were scattered here.
On the left of the lookout is Oahu’s other famous crater, Koko Crater. This cinder cone rises about 1,200 feet into the air.
Then we headed down the road a few miles to check out the Halona blowhole. Unlike the one in Maui, I had a really hard time photographing this blowhole. It definitely wasn’t nearly as strong. A lot of tourists gather at a lookout above the blowhole (which seems like an odd angle to me). So we headed to the adjacent beach, Sandy Beach, to grab a picture from the side.
Next up was Makapu’u Beach but before we headed to the beach, we stopped at a scenic overlook to take in the view of the Kaohi-ka-ipu Island off in the distance. This island was created by traditional lava flow when the ocean level was much lower. It was made from one of the last eruptions on Oahu. On the right side of this island is another island called Rabbit Island. Rabbit received its name from locals because rabbits used to be raised on the island.
The lookout also gave us a perfect view of Makapu’u Beach below. I just love this picture. It so perfectly captures Hawaii. You can be standing on a hot, sandy beach and look over your shoulder to a huge, green covered mountain.
The water seemed to be calling our names, perhaps we were still recovering from the heat of Diamond Head. So we drove down to the beach and walk right into the water.
The waves break very intensely here on the shore so we were weary to go much further in than a few steps. This beach is very popular though with the locals for bodysurfing because of those intense waves. I don’t know why Mr. A has that look on his face. Perhaps he finally had it with my picture taking.
Instead of taking the boring highway back to the resort, I decided to lead Mr. A on a slight detour through the Ko’olau Range. The fluted cliffs here peak at over 3,000 feet. I’ve never seen so many different shades of green, literally every shade you could ever imagine. The highway here tunnels directly through these mountains and spits you out on the other side of the mountain range. As you can imagine, creating this complex highway was incredibly costly. This 16 mile stretch cost $100 million per mile and took 37 years to complete. The beauty here reminded me so much of the Road to Hana, except this time there wasn’t a deadly cliff directly to our left. If you have a chance to take H-3 through the Ko’olau Range, I highly recommend it.
Even though we only made a few quick stops on the eastern side of Oahu, it was still some of the most beautiful scenery we saw in Oahu. If you head up to Diamond Head, make sure you don’t forget about these other gems.
