Travel: HONOLULU, HAWAII (Part 3) - North Shore, Haleiwa, & Dole Plantation

*Check out previous editions of my Hawaii series here first!*

Having had such a great experience on my hostel-run tour the day before, I’d opted for another one the following day, this one that I was greatly looking forward to. For just $30, I’d be granted a full day trip to the North Shore, an area of Oahu that I would otherwise not have had access to. Our driver, Mike, picked us up at 9am and drove us about an hour out to Waimea Bay.

The main attraction of this beach is the 30ft cliff that the brave and/or stupid can jump off of (although of course not endorsed by the guide), and I was more than happy enough to watch people jump of rather than do it myself. The waves which rolled in beside the cliff were half as high as the cliff itself, and it was those I was more scared of than the jump itself.

After a little internal persuasion, I managed to convince myself to climb to the top of the cliff, a feat in itself, particularly as it started raining shortly after we set off, making for a slippy ascent. Still, I had achieved what I had set out to, and that was enough for me.

On we went to Sharks Cove which, with a name like that, I definitely would have been more wary of after my experience in East Coast Australia (coming soon to this blog). I can neither confirm nor deny whether sharks do indeed reside here, but food trucks certainly do, so we stopped here first to pick up fish tacos or, in my case, more shave ice – this time the more traditional small chunks of ice doused in flavoured syrup.

Refreshed, it was then down to the cove itself for some more snorkelling, made even more fun by the super strong current which constantly threatened to drag us out to sea if we weren’t careful. Still, the fish didn’t seem to mind.

We were then due to visit Turtle Beach, so called because it is often home to green sea turtles like the ones I’d seen the day before. However, a cursory glance at the beach as we drove by suggested that the conditions weren’t quite right for the turtles, and we’d be wasting our time if we stopped off there.

Subsequently we headed on to the surfing town of Haleiwa, which I was pretty happy with having already seen turtles before and keen to visit the well known Oahu town. We were given free time to roam around, and so I walked along the touristy streets, past the famous Matsumoto Shave Ice (cheaper and bigger portions than what I’d bought earlier, but who was to know we’d have visited this later in the day) to the Bob Marley mural and into a number of the town’s stunning art galleries. Had I been a millionaire, I certainly would not have left empty-handed.

Our final stop of the day was the Dole Pineapple Plantation. My main focus of visiting was the Dole Whip, a famous pineapple flavoured soft serve ice cream found only here and at the Disneyland parks. The plantation hosts a very extensive gift shop with anything and everything pineapple themed that you could possibly want, the aforementioned pineapple soft serve (yes, it was wholly delicious, particularly with fresh pineapple draped on top) and a garden outside with, you guessed it, pineapples. If you’ve never seen how a pineapple grows before, this is indeed fairly interesting.

Pineapple curiosity peaked, it was time to head back home as the sky began to darken for another sunset on Waikiki Beach, as there are indeed very few things that make me happier than a sunset. Afterwards, it was time to eat, and something that I'd been keen to try whilst in Hawaii was a poke bowl, usually made with raw fish, rice, and heaps of toppings. Obviously I wasn't going to settle for any old poke bowl and found the best one on my beloved TripAdvisor, which turned out to be The Poke Bar, about a twenty minute walk from my hostel.

The Poke Bar is essentially a Subway for poke. You start by choosing your base (half sushi rice and half brown rice for me), your protein (tofu for me), toppings (wakame, edamame, crispy garlic and shallots, cucumber etc), and sauce. Let me tell you, they don't skimp on the portion side. We brought our poke bowls to the beach hoping to see some fireworks which never materialised, but tell me if there's anything as nice as sitting on the beach at night eating delicious food. 

I hope you enjoyed today's blog! There's one more Hawaii blog to come, so make sure to stay tuned to my Twitter @CiarasCountry and feel free to drop me a message in the comments for any recommendations of where I should visit next!