North Shore

We've had a rainy morning here in Hawaii but the weather is brightening up again this afternoon. It's still hot though even when it's raining and sometimes the break in the sunshine is a welcome relief.

We've been for lunch at Chilli's this afternoon but were left less than impressed. Everything on the menu is full of grass so it was really difficult to find anything to eat. I guess we're just very, very English, I would have been much happier with yorkshire pudding and gravy! It wasn't all bad though because they do stunning margaritas, I had a huge blue one which was enough to get me a little tipsy for the afternoon.

We had a great day yesterday exploring the North Shore of the Island. We caught a circle island bus which drove us directly across the island to the old 60's surfer town of Haleiwa. The town was just as you would imagine a 1960's surfer hotpsot to look, down to the little wooden stores and the shrimp shacks!

From Haleiwa we caught the bus to the turtle beach where wild turtles live freely in the waters and sand. We got some great shots of a large green "honu" just sleeping on the beach, completely uninterested in the tourists taking pictures.

The buses here run on Hawaiian time, so we ended up waiting nearly an hour for the next circle island and were a little tired by this point, so we stayed on a while driving along the coast past all the best Hawaiian surf beaches and then jumped off at the windwards mall, known as the local's mall. This was a little smaller than the Ala Moana in Honolulu and obviously much more catered to locals than to tourists. It had some really interesting shops and was well worth a visit.

We're having a well earned rest today doing a little washing and chilling out by the pool!