A Honeymoon in Hawaii (9 photos)

mmroden

Hi Everyone,

My lovely wife and I just got back from our honeymoon in Hawai'i! It really is the perfect vacation spot, except for the large number of car crashes from people all over the world and their different approaches to driving.

Our trip started off with us getting lost in Waikiki, and eventually figuring it out and stopping by at Duke's. Duke's is a chain, actually, which we realized when we got in; it's the same as in Malibu. So, the next day, we hiked up to Diamondhead State Park, to get a view of the ocean:

As well as a very panoramic vista of Waikiki itself:



If you've ever been to Santa Monica, then you've been to Waikiki, except Santa Monica is more low key and cheaper with most of the same restaurants.

They do have commercial Luau's in Waikiki, and they're pretty fun, with some very impressive fire handling:


So, then we went to the Big Island, and on our first day, went to the Boiling Pots, just up the road from the B&B we stayed at:

I kept expecting creatures from the most recent King Kong to come out of the forest at us.

The next day, we went on a lava hike, 5 miles out to see lava, and 5 miles back. Older lava flows have definitely overrun the road:

The heat from the flow itself is intense:

(it's a post about a honeymoon, I'm surprised I managed to restrain myself to just the one shot of us).

Luckily, there is a lot of rainfall, so you can get some pretty spectacular rainbows:

Short plug: the only tour company we could find that would take us directly to the lava, instead of 200 yards away and handing us binoculars, was Arnott's Lodge. They were also the cheapest, and had some pretty stringent entry requirements. Not everyone can (or wants to) make a hike over 5 miles of volcanic rock and glass; two people tripped and cut their hands open trying to steady themselves.

The next day, we went to the summit of Mauna Kea, which has some of the largest telescopes in the world:


as well as some pretty spectacular vistas (vistae for those who studied Latin, I suppose):


The next day, we went on a hike to the Green Sand Beach. it's fairly remote: 2.5 mile hike, followed by rock climbing and bouldering to get to the beach itself. The guidebooks mention that it's also a pretty high-theft area, so I left the camera behind.

For our final day, we returned to Waikiki to a dinner at Alan Wong's, which I highly recommend.

And now, I'm back here on the mainland, getting adjusted to married life for real.

Thanks for reading!

More shots are at:
http://mmroden.smugmug.com/gallery/1804281
and
http://mmroden.smugmug.com/gallery/1803920

wxwax

Excellent report! And some sweet shots, too. Especially the one of Santa Monica.

Awais Yaqub

Great Trip thanks for sharing

marlof

That heat sure showed off! Congratulations on your wedding, and thanks for sharing your honeymoon with us.

mbz

Very nice pictures.
Do you have more lava shots?
Have you seen it entered the ocean?
Please post them.

gluwater

Congratulations to you two . It looks like you had a fantastic honeymoon and thanks for shareing it with us. I really like these two shots steam and rainbow.

mmroden

Thanks for looking, everyone!

To answer your question, mbz, here's a shot of lava entering the ocean. I hope it's what your looking for; I shot these with a 17-55, and considered switching to an 85mm, but decided not to risk getting dust/gas in my camera.

mbz

mmroden wrote:

Thanks for looking, everyone!

To answer your question, mbz, here's a shot of lava entering the ocean. I hope it's what your looking for; I shot these with a 17-55, and considered switching to an 85mm, but decided not to risk getting dust/gas in my camera.

Thank you for respons, but I do not see the picture.

mmroden

ah, I put it in the 'here's' link. But here's the whole photo, excerpted from the site:



As I said, it's not much of a closeup, but you can definitely see lava going into the water there.

mbz

Very nice, thank you for sharing.

ian408

congrats on your wedding!

Nice place for a honeymoon too