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We began the third day with a hike through the jungle along the Puʻu Oʻhia trail, up Mount Tantalus. The trail started out with assorted jungle plants and lots of guava trees. Most of the guavas were just past ripe, so there were smooshed and rotting guavas all over the ground. 
 The vegetation then suddenly changed to nothing but bamboo! 
 
After taking a long and winding (but fun!) side trail, which was so overgrown at points that we had to part the plants with our arms, we finally came to an amazing view near the top. 
Then we came out on the main trail, and followed it to the official summit. From there we could see Honolulu and Diamond Head crater. 
 After some relaxing and playing games for a while in the afternoon, we decided to drive up to the North Shore and check out the waves. Online before we left, it said they were getting 25 foot swells! So we sat and watched the surfers at Waimea. If you look closely, you can see people in some of the waves. 
 Mike and Liz went down to the water to wade a little and get a sense of the power of the undertow. Meanwhile, I buried my feet in the sand and relaxed a little. 
 The sunset was amazing. I don't really have to say anything more about the next set of photos...  
 On the way out of the parking lot, we decided to do a little tree climbing as well. 
 After we'd left and the sun was gone, but while there was still a little light, we noticed a large crowd still watching some more seasoned surfers at the Wansai Pipeline. We stopped, but the waves weren't quite high enough at that point to make a full pipe, and it was too dark by then to see much anyway. Here are some nice crashing waves at dusk, though. 
Before leaving the North Shore we got some shave ice. Then we drove back to Honolulu and went out to Buca di Beppo, an italian restaurant. It's about as far from Italy as one can get, but the eggplant parmesan was very good, and Sarah gave an exciting and memorable tour of the kitchen! 
12/28 | 12/29 | 12/30 | 12/31 | 01/01 | 01/02back to photos |
