Up at 3:30AM. We even beat the sprinklers this morning! We have to catch a 6AM flight to Oahu this morning, so the cab picks us up from Ho'oilo House and heads to the airport. We have to stop in Lahaina along the way because we forgot to return the adjustable wrench that Blake lent to us when he adjusted my mirror a few days ago. I leave it at their doorstep and hope no one snatches it before they open up shop in 4 hours. We arrive at the airport at 4:30AM and it's as deserted as a ghost town. Kind of eerie actually. But in 1/2 an hour people start showing up for the flight to Oahu, and the Aloha Airlines check-in counter opens up. The check-in lady takes one look at our bags and makes us weigh them. 71 lbs! Mysteriously, Neda's bag has gained an additional 15 lbs from the time we arrived in Maui... Someone's been doing some binge shopping while I wasn't looking. We now have to buy an additional suitcase in Oahu because I don't want to pay any more over-size baggage fees for the flight home to Toronto.
The flight between Maui and Oahu takes 31 minutes from take-off to landing. Along the way, we fly over the Molokai, a sparsely populated island. In Molokai and even Oahu when we approach for landing, it's quite interesting to see the ridges that volcanic activity has created along the island and where man has populated the valleys and coastlines. Seen from far above and over a long period of time, we're really no different than bacteria growing in a petri dish, growing and settling in all the areas with favorable conditions and avoiding inhospitable spots. But we do more fun things though, like ride motorcycles and surf!
Taking the cab from the airport to our hotel, we noticed that Oahu is a lot more urban than Maui. Honolulu is the largest city in Hawaii, with it's sprawling highway and road system, it seems like any mid-size American city. It's kind of disappointing, in a way, because it's not what I picture when I think of Hawaii. Our hotel is right on Waikiki Beach, which is dotted with resorts and other hotels and wall-to-wall high-end shopping stores just a block away from the beach. Like in Maui, we dump our bags and make our way to the motorcycle rental place, which is about 4 blocks away from the hotel. Very convenient. Unfortunately, Neda forgets her driver's license in the hotel, so she has to go back and grab it before the contracts can be signed. They let her borrow a bicycle to speed things up and she parks it near the valet guys in the hotel. When she arrives, Larry from Kahuna Cycle is bringing around a bright yellow 2008 Yamaha R6. We thought it was ours, but it's actually rented to another guy. Man were we disappointed. He wheeled out our bikes and our hearts sank a little. They were both 2005 models, a BMW R1150R and a Yamaha R6, but they were kind of ratty, unwashed and the BMW had seen a couple of falls - the rear blinker was held on with duct tape! Oh well, they're bikes and we're riding in March in Hawaii, so I don't think very much of it.
A quick ride back to the hotel and we pass the valet guys for a second time that day. One of the guys looks at Neda's motorcycle and says, "Where's your bicycle?". She replies, "I upgraded!". Laffs all around!
Our hotel, the Halekulani, seems to cater to Japanese visitors. The menu has a special Japanese breakfast consisting of salmon, rice, miso soup, seaweed strips and some stuff I don't even know the names of, but it was very delicious! We also saw a lot of Japanese guests walking around the property as well. After breakfast, we decide to make the most of the day and hop back on the bikes to explore the island. The concierge is a bicyclist and recommended that we go out to Dilliga airfield which is at the western tip of the island. Apparently they wind conditions are good there for a variety of air-sports, parachuting, gliding, kite-surfing, etc. I look at the labyrinth of squiggly lines on the map they give us and I turned to Neda and said, "Prepare to do a lot of U-turns today..."
We eventually make it out of Honolulu on the main Highway H1 that travels east-west. I'm riding the R6 and Neda has commandeered the R1150R. The Yamaha is the previous-generation model and is like all the 4-cylinder 600cc supersports I've ridden. Buzzy, twitchy, a bit of an aggressive riding position. I don't know how guys do distance on these bikes. The bike is fitted with an aftermarket Yoshimura exhaust and the thing sounds amazing, especially when you're revving the snot out of it in tunnels! The bike likes to fall-in pretty quickly with the 180mm stock rear tire, I'm used to the 190mm rears that we fitted on our sportbikes back at home. Neda's experience with the R1150R was much like her R1200ST at home, but the seating position was a bit less aggressive and the bars were a bit wider. The Beemer is also a bit cold-blooded and needed a couple minutes with the fast-idle-lever turned on to warm the engine up or it would stall when taking off.
After Dilliga Airfield, we made our way up to the north shore which is notorious for it's killers-sized waves. They have a lot of surfing competitions here. The traffic was very congested here and at first I thought it was because of rush hour. It turns out that there are so many beaches and little towns catering to surfers and tourists that traffic slows to a crawl as people turn in and out of beach parking lots and restaurants. At some beaches, long tour-buses unload tourists out into the shores and they gather along the shoreline - cameras out taking pictures and videos of nothing but large waves and surfers.
The traffic thins out considerably as you travel south of the northern coast of the island. The area on the west-side of the island is not as developed and we ride through more thickly forested areas; lush, green mountains on our right and the shoreline lapping waves on our left. Beautiful scenery!
As it is getting darker, we take the Pali Highway which twists it's way though the middle of the island, through tunnels built to take vehicles under the large mountains. We stop at the Pali Lookout just at dusk to take some spectacular shots of the city.
Back at the hotel a bit after sundown. We watch Honolulu come alive as the city streets begin to glow - lit up from the lights washing out from stores like Billabong and Quicksilver, beckoning tourists to come take home some souvenirs of an enchanted island called Hawaii.
|
