Day 7: Trekking to our own stairway to heaven

 I have to say we are pretty lucky to be here to be telling the story tonight. I am not sure if @Mac was the hero or he was the one who placed us in danger. 

Hot and sweaty at the summit of Diamond Head

Our morning routine is now established. Alexa voice wakes us up and then it is out onto the deck to enjoy the views, and the sunshine and to feast on some fresh fruit and any leftover food from the night before. All washed down with fresh pineapple juice. A freshen up, a pack of the bags and then we head down to the coffee shop for the heart starter.

Starting out right at the Ilikai

We got very serious this morning and along with the coffee infusion, decided to download the local Hawaiian transport app. This has made life a lot easier and we had plenty of time to board that reliable bus 23 at 10:08 to make our way out to Diamond Head for our hike. @Mac had booked the park entry last night and scheduled us for 11:00 o'clock.. seemed like a good idea at the time because that gave us plenty of time for the morning rituals and the bus trip. But when you REALLY think about it that meant we were hiking in the hottest part of the day.

A little hiccup as Mac boarded the bus. Apparently I had successfully loaded my card with today’s credit for our bus trips but somehow hadn't quite completed the action on his card amd when he tapped on, the card was declined. Thank goodness for a generous driver - he just Hawaiian style waved @Mac on and told him to have a good day. We took our seats and promptly reloaded that card - successfully this time.

Blissfully unawares

Once at the bus stop we had to make a preliminary climb up the hill and through a long tunnel before we were able to reach the ticket booth and check in for our 11:00 o’clock hike time. The posters in the arrival area suggested the hike would take us 90 minutes - not so sure they had made allowance for age, a new knee and weight. But we set off in good spirits and just took one step at a time at our own pace (well my pace rather than @Mac’s potential) and I definitely took advantage of all of the hand holds and hand rails that we were met with along the way. It was hard work and we were passed by streams of people – not sure we ever overtook anybody. And it was HOT. But the views were definitely worth it.

Had the opportunity to look down into the crater to see the flat area that we had recently left that was the ticket booth and continued to scale up the barren steep cliffs to the rim of the crater. Lots of uneven paths pitted with potholes and eroded little gullies and flights of very UNwelcomed stairs but all interspersed with lookouts and amazing views of either the coastline or the crater itself or its walls.

 Everyone was patient along the way greeting each other and encouraging of each other as the climb up became steeper and tougher. @Mac was disappointed that the 93 step shortcut section had been closed but I was actually rejoicing because from the vantage point of the bottom step it looked as if it were straight up.

At the summit, the view of the coastline and downtown Honolulu and the beach of Waikiki were absolutely spectacular and worth every step. So glad we made it.

 

The ascent had a different set of challenges – our stride length became much shorter, knees under a bit more pressure and the heat was really ramping up as we were already an hour into the climb. l clung to the sides of the railings and tried to find every vantage point of shade that was on offer. It was hot  and we were parched and sweating but have to admit that although it was a little tougher on the knees the downhill journey was much kinder.

Got back to the entry gate exactly 2 hours after we had left. A little bit longer than the average but I’m sure we enjoyed it just as much as the fastest hikers on the Diamond Head trail.

 

Still marvelling at the variety of people on the trail. @Mac commented on the number of foreign languages we heard in passing our fellow hikers. Quite amazed at the number of young families who were encouraging toddlers to take the steps along the trail and carrying babies on their front, back and shoulders as they tried to finish the climb

 

We had no service in the crater and had no idea of when the homeward bound bus would be available. As we came out of the entry tunnel a cab driver waved at us and offered us a ride back to our hotel for $15. We smiled and said no thank you keen to do the return journey by the bus. @Mac was on the transport app and now that he had reception, discovered that we had just 8 minutes to make that final section to get bus 23.

I sort of did a staggering walking run to increase our speed and just as we reached the roadway after six minutes of this agonising limping and lagging gait at speed, @Mac noticed a bus around the corner and could clearly see the number 3 on it and announced we had to SPRINT. . now I’ve just walked up and down Diamond Head for two hours and SPRINTING is not really in the vocabulary of my legs. But clenching onto @Mac's hand I did try and send those signals to propel those legs up and down.

Not much happened really. It was sort of akin to dragging a dead dog on a leash  ... or dragging those wet hessian sacks across the beach looking for worms. Any-who ... I found myself stranded in the middle of the road with @Mac pulling me along and the bus barrelling towards us.

Thank goodness the driver was awake – he had to brake in order to miss hitting us. Could have been a very sad end to our Hawaiian birthday bash.

 The driver was also kind enough to hold the bus for us. Unfortunately it was bus 3 not 23 and we had to thank him and wave him on.

 Finally home safely after our big adventure and rewarded ourselves with two scoops in a bucket from the ice cream store in the lobby. Way too much but we just kept on dipping that spoon down to the bottom of the tub and declared it “lunch.” Do think we need to reassess this two scoop habit that we have developed over time. Always too much but somehow we always “force” ourselves to eat it.

@Mindy and @Ian were kind enough to come and set up in our unit and make sure that the cold water was ready and the air conditioning was on to cool us down. We had planned on going to visit the Ala Moana centre with them but opted to just sit and be and cool down for two hours. Really, we had expended all of the gas that was available to us and to be honest we had a little nap.

 Eventually roused ourselves around the four o’clock mark to go and enjoy the afternoon breeze under the swaying palm trees beside our local lagoon. Amused ourselves by watching all of the passers by. We were eventually joined by the solo shoppers and the stranded travellers @Bri and @Dan.

 Clouds were doing their usual afternoon movement and I wasn’t confident that we would be witnessing a sunset this evening. We left the lagoon and took off to the Hilton around 6:00 o'clock to have a look at the luau and to order ourselves some dinner. 

 I think the word pizza was mentioned two days ago and I haven’t stopped thinking about it since so we had to hunt around in the depths of the Hilton to find the restaurant. Managed to place our order, only to get home as the sun had just dipped under the horizon and can you believe it, that, for the first time on our balcony time, there was not a cloud in sight and we had missed it. No worries just set up our dinner and drinks and sat down and watched the glory of a  changing sky post sunset. Still magical.

 The big travel news of the day is that for Bri and Dan and the Carters who were supposed to leave early this morning – their flight was postponed for 20 hours. They were re directed back to accommodation supplied by the airline to spend another day in Waikiki with an anticipated departure tomorrow morning at 4:30 AM - have to be at the airport at 3:00 AM in order to get this flight.

Can you imagine how stressed you would be if you had connecting bookings at the other end for a tour or a cruise. Being selfish I hope that all of our arrangements continue as smoothly as they have so far.

So glad this flight was closed

Step Count: 14986

Weather: 30 - 24 .. felt like 40 on the hike

Snorkelling Videos and Stills courtesy @Mindy and @Ian