Hawaii – Day 6

The North Shore of Oahu

Today was a really fun day! We were both so excited to explore the North Shore and it didnt disappoint!
The North Shore is something I would not recommend seeing on the town bus. You would definitely need a car for this trip.
We were told you can drive around Oahu in 2 hours without making a stop. But be careful as many people will warn you, lock up your car and always take valuables with you as break and enters are huge in the North Coast.. apparently – we had no trouble, but of course we followed that advice.

The laid-back North Shore is a stretch of coast known for big waves and professional surfing contests at Waimea Bay and Sunset Beach and home to some of the best food trucks you will ever eat from!

We had been planning our North Shore trip for a while and we knew the best way to see it how we wanted to would be to hire a car. At first we were going to use the Toro car hire app, but it was hard finding the right car, adding up all the fees and some cars you had to go and collect them.

Where we stayed in Waikiki there were many car hire places close to our Airbnb, so we enquired at one place the day before our trip and decided on a soft top 2 door jeep. It was cute, new and all we needed!

So we woke up early on Wednesday morning and had a huge breakfast at Eggs & Things Waikiki. Their meals were reasonable priced and huge! There was a line up to get in but it moved quickly and this gave you time to read the extensive menu. Trent had a mountain of pancakes and I had a ham and cheese omelette that nearly didn’t fit on the plate.

At 9am the car rental place was open and after signing Trent’s life away we were off!
Trent found a very useful app that helped us a lot on our tour, its call the Shaka App. https://www.shakaguide.com/  A GPS self-tour guide that runs from your phone through the cars blue tooth. It was informative, funny and told of a lot of great places to stop.
Tip – drive anti-clock wise around Oahu, you will be going against the traffic and this will help avoid traffic jams.

We stopped at so many beautiful locations and I think next time I’d hire a car for 2 days and spend a night, so we could explore more and consume more North Shore awesome food.

A great place to stop was Waimea Falls. A large waterfall with plenty of swimming room located in the lush botanical gardens in Waimea Falls Park. The walk to the waterfall once you pay the $18 p.p entry fee is 1.6km and is a great easy walk. Once you reach the falls there are lifeguards who hand everyone a life vest even if you can swim – no life vest = no swimming. We loved it, very relaxing.
1.5 hours later we hopped back in the car and we continued North. We stopped at a few nice beaches like Sunset beach but our favourite was the popular Laniakea Beach (Haleiwa) also known as Turtle Beach. We knew we were getting close as the traffic was crazy, so many people trying to find a parking spot and our luck was good today as well, because we found one right away. I was so excited getting out of the car as I hoped we would see a turtle, small, big, swimming, asleep I didnt care, top of my list in Hawaii was to see a sea turtle in its natural habitat and wow did we ever!

As we walked onto the beach the crowds were all hovering in one spot as a large sea turtle had beached itself for a nap in the sun. I felt sorry for the turtle as I felt like we were all in a zoo harassing it and not giving it the space it needed. There were ladies there from Hawaii turtle protection group which was good to see.
Trent went for a walk on the rocks away from the crowds and quietly called me over. In a nice quiet area away from the crowds were two little sea turtles in the rock pools. AHHH it was amazing! We sat and watched them for a while and then went for a swim in the beach ourselves with our snorkel gear. Thankfully Trent has great eyes for turtle spotting as right in front of us were 2 sea turtles happily swimming around eating algae off the rocks, it was awesome! I was so excited! This was another experience we will never forget! So glad we had the gopro on!
Check out youtube for that vlog!

A short trip up the road we arrived in Haleiwa and came across foodie heaven! The North Shore food trucks! It was only 11.30am but we knew we had to stop for lunch especially when we saw the famous Giovanni’s Shrimp Truck! The smell was amazing and as Im not a shrimp fan I ordered some shave ice and fresh pineapple! OMG the pineapple in Hawaii is amazing! Full of flavour and juice and nothing we’ll ever get at home. Same was said about the Giovanni’s Shrimp, Trent said it was the best shrimp he had ever tasted! We arrived at the right time as by 12pm the place was packed but they still managed to pump the orders out quickly.

An hour later the clouds came over and the rain hit. The weather was the worst we had seen since we had been here and the rain didnt just pass over like in Waikiki where it lasts 5 minutes, this rain hung around for at least and hour. But we didnt mind, the rain didnt dampen our spirits.
We stopped at the little town in Haleiwa, this town was very different from the busy tourist hot spot of Waikiki, no big flashy hotels, no street performers just quiet cafes and local stores. Im glad despite the rain we still got out for a walk here because we found the famous Matsumoto Shave Ice! Its was cold and raining and yet there was still a big line up out the door, we had to try it!
We paid $4.50 for a large bowl of ice cream, shave ice and 3 flavours. We waited about 15 mins to be served and WOW it is the best shave ice I have ever had! We were both blown away! How could something made from ice and syrup taste this good! (We need to do this here in Australia!)
After our bellies were full of the best shave ice ever! We drove a little further to the popular Dole pineapple plantation. Ohh I love pineapple – no not just like ‘yeah I love it on pizza’ Im an literally obsessed! I can eat a tin of dole pieces a day! Until I learnt that pineapple the acid burnt off my taste buds.. but anyway!
We stopped here to try the popular ‘Dole Whip’ pineapple soft serve ice cream.
Now I love ice cream and pineapple but this combo just tasted a little odd. Creamy but sour, we were not really a fan, yet at $5.50 for each mini cone we still ate it all. A few selfies and pineapple souvenirs later we were driving through Wahiawa and heading home past the Pearl City back to Waikiki. Good bye North Shore We loved you!

Today was an awesome adventure full of discovery, top down driving (the jeep that is), lots of food, photos and laughs (especially one part when the Shaka app starts playing the Jurassic Park theme song as you drive through the jungle and your boyfriend asks “do we turn the car around and drive back to hear it again’ for good vlog footage, god love him!

We arrived back home at 5pm and after a quick relax we headed out to Tikis Grill & Bar Waikiki. The atmosphere was great, nice cocktails, live music, Polynesian dancers and great tasting food!
Trent and I even got lei’d at the end!
Today was an amazing fun day! I would definitely recommend to everyone to hire a car and explore the North Shore, it’s very different to Waikiki and full of hidden wonders.