I'm sitting on a lanai (balcony) 24 floors above Waikiki Beach and wondering what to blog about while on holiday. Do I say something about the theology of shopping - and the number of homeless people I have seen pillaging trash bins for food and collecting black bags full of recyclables they can sell? Although these folk have touched my heart more than usual this time round, my frail humanity is still deeply materialistic, so I will not not perjure myself by trying to pretend a holiday in Hawaii is anything other than hedonistic.
Do I write about the local Presbyterian Church we didn't attend on Sunday? We had hoped to get there, having seen the pastor on Crystal Cathedral just last Sunday. Dan Chung is a personable Presbyterian whose story of a Honolulu church desperately needing to relocate, and making the courageous decision to buy a whole golf course, was inspiring. Sadly, the golf course to which they have relocated is thirteen miles inland from our hotel and we decided our commitment to visit in person was not that deep. The Waikiki Baptist church also figured on the list of possibilities, but when I read that the "Christian hula" would feature in the service, we gave that away too.
In the end we decided to worship in the "church without walls" by taking a Sunday hike in the great outdoors where we could appreciate the hand of God in creation. My freebie guidebook told me the easiest on offer was the 5km roundtrip on a paved track up to the Makapu'u peninsula where a lighthouse has been sited for just on a hundred years. This sounded good, so we checked with the Expedia concierge as to how to get there. She told us to take a #23 bus and sure enough, after wending its way through the classy suburbs of the south coast of Oahu, this one climbed the very dry grasslands past the entrance to the Trail and deposited us at the bus-stop at Sea Life Park. "What now?" we wondered, and wandered down to the busy surfbeach posted with serious warnings about the strong rip, and the breakers' tendency to knock you over. Ric climbed the dunes to ask directions of the ubiquitous friendly lifeguard, who pointed us up to the r
oad, a cliffhanging highway with no footpaths, and at least a mile from the gates to the Trail. We didn't want to go all the way back down the beach, so we scrambled through chest-high scrub to get to the roadside, which was at that point wide enough for the surfies' vehicles to park. However it soon narrowed down to a 30cm strip with one side being a concrete wall above the beach, and the other two lanes of highway traffic, this being H1, the main coastal road of Oahu. (The uphill side of the thoroughfare was even less appealing, being slightly wider, but banked by crumbling rock walls). So we carefully walked for several hundred metres, enduring tooting horns, a gesticulating trolley driver, and a bus that would have collected me if he hadn't been so kind as to swing across the double yellow line. All this before we even started what I thought was a beginner level hike!
The trail itself was a great experience, though it is easier than Diamond Head, personally I wouldn't call it beginner level. My legs got a bit sore with the climb, as I had had a virus in the weeks before we left and had missed my regular workouts. But it was paved most of the way, and even where it was rutted, the holes were marked out with white paint. There were observation points along the way, and apparently whales can often be spotted out to sea. We didn't see any but we did see an amazing cluster of sunny rock pools at the bottom of a steep cliff track, and young people heading off to these idyllic spots, carrying chilly bins! (I guess they would be empty by the time they carried them back up). The sights and sounds were marvellous, and at the top we could see for miles across a totally flat horizon. The ocean was the most amazing cobalt blue, the waves crashing on the rocks were sparkly white, and the little lighthouse roof stood out in a delightful cherry red. Pause for thanksgiving to the God who made it all.
On the way back down, we passed a memorial stone, erected to commemorate the crash of a Catalina seaplane in April 1942, when nine American naval aviators perished in serving their country in World War II. Returning from 12 hours patrol in foul weather, they crashed into the hillside, having mistaken the Makapu'u lighthouse for another navigational light in the area. It was a sobering thought to be reminded that these peaceful Hawaiian islands were once a locus of violent conflict. Pause for thanksgiving that we live in more peaceful times.
In the end we decided to worship in the "church without walls" by taking a Sunday hike in the great outdoors where we could appreciate the hand of God in creation. My freebie guidebook told me the easiest on offer was the 5km roundtrip on a paved track up to the Makapu'u peninsula where a lighthouse has been sited for just on a hundred years. This sounded good, so we checked with the Expedia concierge as to how to get there. She told us to take a #23 bus and sure enough, after wending its way through the classy suburbs of the south coast of Oahu, this one climbed the very dry grasslands past the entrance to the Trail and deposited us at the bus-stop at Sea Life Park. "What now?" we wondered, and wandered down to the busy surfbeach posted with serious warnings about the strong rip, and the breakers' tendency to knock you over. Ric climbed the dunes to ask directions of the ubiquitous friendly lifeguard, who pointed us up to the r
oad, a cliffhanging highway with no footpaths, and at least a mile from the gates to the Trail. We didn't want to go all the way back down the beach, so we scrambled through chest-high scrub to get to the roadside, which was at that point wide enough for the surfies' vehicles to park. However it soon narrowed down to a 30cm strip with one side being a concrete wall above the beach, and the other two lanes of highway traffic, this being H1, the main coastal road of Oahu. (The uphill side of the thoroughfare was even less appealing, being slightly wider, but banked by crumbling rock walls). So we carefully walked for several hundred metres, enduring tooting horns, a gesticulating trolley driver, and a bus that would have collected me if he hadn't been so kind as to swing across the double yellow line. All this before we even started what I thought was a beginner level hike!The trail itself was a great experience, though it is easier than Diamond Head, personally I wouldn't call it beginner level. My legs got a bit sore with the climb, as I had had a virus in the weeks before we left and had missed my regular workouts. But it was paved most of the way, and even where it was rutted, the holes were marked out with white paint. There were observation points along the way, and apparently whales can often be spotted out to sea. We didn't see any but we did see an amazing cluster of sunny rock pools at the bottom of a steep cliff track, and young people heading off to these idyllic spots, carrying chilly bins! (I guess they would be empty by the time they carried them back up). The sights and sounds were marvellous, and at the top we could see for miles across a totally flat horizon. The ocean was the most amazing cobalt blue, the waves crashing on the rocks were sparkly white, and the little lighthouse roof stood out in a delightful cherry red. Pause for thanksgiving to the God who made it all.
On the way back down, we passed a memorial stone, erected to commemorate the crash of a Catalina seaplane in April 1942, when nine American naval aviators perished in serving their country in World War II. Returning from 12 hours patrol in foul weather, they crashed into the hillside, having mistaken the Makapu'u lighthouse for another navigational light in the area. It was a sobering thought to be reminded that these peaceful Hawaiian islands were once a locus of violent conflict. Pause for thanksgiving that we live in more peaceful times.
I really did not want to walk back down the road the way we had come. I looked at walking back south towards Waikiki through the scrublands we could see below us, but Ric wasn't k
een ,as we didn't know how far we would have to go to find another bus stop; later we realised that in fact it would have been good option, as there was one at a golfcourse just a few km away. He stubbornly headed off up the road, while I lagged behind and rehearsed a little speech to beg a ride. After several cars full of parents and kids passed us, and we just missed catching up with a ute stopped on the road, I stopped a man I saw unlocking his car in a layby just off the highway. "Hi, I'm Viv, and I'm from New Zealand," I said, "my husband and I made the error of judgement in walking here from Sea Life Park, and need a lift back so we don't have to take our lives in our hands again. Can you help?" I don't even know his name but this friendly local happily agreed, and took us right to the bus stop a few minutes drive away. Pause for thanksgiving for the kindness of strangers.
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een ,as we didn't know how far we would have to go to find another bus stop; later we realised that in fact it would have been good option, as there was one at a golfcourse just a few km away. He stubbornly headed off up the road, while I lagged behind and rehearsed a little speech to beg a ride. After several cars full of parents and kids passed us, and we just missed catching up with a ute stopped on the road, I stopped a man I saw unlocking his car in a layby just off the highway. "Hi, I'm Viv, and I'm from New Zealand," I said, "my husband and I made the error of judgement in walking here from Sea Life Park, and need a lift back so we don't have to take our lives in our hands again. Can you help?" I don't even know his name but this friendly local happily agreed, and took us right to the bus stop a few minutes drive away. Pause for thanksgiving for the kindness of strangers.
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