Green Cliffs of Oahu

We took the trip to Pearl Harbor on a tour bus and got the added bonus of a trip to the North shore of Oahu where we saw some beautiful scenery.

The trip was a bit spur-of-the-moment: our driver/tour guide (who deftly managed our big bus with one hand and the microphone giving us play-by-play with the other) at least made it sound like a bonus.

It was. I was quickly finding out that when most people think of Hawai'i, they think of beaches and palm trees. That's certainly part of the islands, but the scenery is some of the most spectacular anywhere in the world (or at least the parts of the world I have seen).

The driver only made a handful of stops, but we tried to make the most of them. In fact, Yr Fthfl Blggr quickly became famous as the last to get back on the bus (thereby holding everyone up...geez, it's Hawai'i...what's the hurry?) while he snagged that one last picture for the blog.

One of the stops was Nu'uanu Pali State Park. The park is actually the passage from the low side (Honolulu) of the island to the high, or windward, side (Kane'ohe). The passage is at the foothills of the Ko'olau mountains, which rise about 1000 feet above sea level.

The Nu'uanu Pali ('pali' means "cliffs" in Hawaiian) is where one of the bloodiest battles in Hawaiian history was fought. In 1795, Kamehameha I sailed from his home island, Hawai'i to Oahu with 10,000 soldiers. He had already conquered Maui and Moloka'i, and had set his sights on Oahu. The decisive battle occurred in this valley, where Kamehameha's forces drove 400 Oahuanas to their deaths over the cliffs.


Apparently the major foe in Nu'uanu Pali today is bees. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on your outlook), we didn't see any bees to speak of while we were there. The weather was quite overcast and it may have been a bit early in the bee season.

The weather on the North shore is dramatically different than the leeward shore - the North shore gets over 600 inches of rainfall a year. That explains the incredible green everywhere.


Right near the entrance of the park were 5 or 6 chickens. Our driver explained that they were most likely 'escapees' from a local farm. Crazy!