My very first weekend here with Ellen and we enjoyed hosting our very first visitor to Alder Street. A friend of Ellen's visiting from New Zealand who was in Hawaii on holiday happened to have a few spare days to spend with us. On Saturday we made use of her hire-car, a Chrysler convertible, to explore the island. We also enjoyed her excellent CD collection, and her taste for Margueritas. So thank you Heather for coming to stay! Heather took this photo on our lazy Sunday at Ala Moana Beach Park. She has now gone back to New York to record an album with her band The Brunettes.

A day trip from Honolulu

A two-hour drive from Honolulu along the Pali Highway and over the Wai'anae Mountains brought us to the windward shores of Kailua and Waimanalo on the eastern edge of O'ahu. These beaches are long and sandy. Fringed with palm trees and with the precipitous pali of the mountains as a backdrop, this south-eastern part of the island is the most Hawaii-looking part I have seen so far.

We saw evidence of the most recent volcanic activity on this particular island. The craters are still clearly visible, and are thankfully all ex-smokers, but their great sheets of volcanic rock are still stratified along the coast and the wind has cut them down into terraces. Ofcourse the ocean is also eroding these sheets, and in places we saw the foam burst up in a great geyser through a blow hole, as waves crashed in from below.

The windward side of the island is home to some well-known danger spots such as Sandy Beach, where the surf will pick you up and dash you on the rocks. So we didn't go there. Instead we went to Kailua because I knew from my previous trip to Hawaii that it's a sheltered spot. Unfortunately the brisk East-North-Easterly trade winds made it too windy for the beach, but the excellent surf allowed us some body surfing for a while. This is where you swim along the crest of a wave and then let it take you, using your body like a board to surf down the wave. It took some practise, and I took some tumbles in the sand.

On our way home we visited the Diamond Head Grill and bought takeaway flame grilled ahi and a steak burger. I drank a soda float, which consists of a pint of coke with a scoop of vanilla ice-cream. For afters we visited Leonard's bakery and bought masaladas.