Hawaii – Oahu

From the big island and 2 nights of no sleep we flew back to Honolulu, this time we actually left the airport braving the masses, big hostels and shopping centres – ok, so we didn’t actually go in to Honolulu itself where all of that is, opting instead to head north and straight up to the legendary North Shore and its big surf. We were hoping that the storm we endured in the tent the night before might have thrown up some big swell and we would get to witness the big waves that this area is famous for…no such luck! It looked like the local swimming pool it was that flat! Wrong time of year as well, which obviously didn’t help. We found a little campsite on the east side of the island set amongst some woods but thankfully with no cats around and pinned down the tent, driving the pegs as far into the ground as they would go ready for another windy night. Not this time thankfully but the rain hammered down all night instead!The following day we headed back south exploring the coastline as we went, it did have some nice spots (if you like beaches) but the weather wasn’t being too kind to us, most of the morning we dodged rain and hid in the car looking out at grey dreary coastline. Thankfully though later in the day the weather finally got a bit better and we happened to find the one beach on the island where the swell was, plus a bodyboarding competition. So we stopped and checked out the action for a little while before it was time to hit the road again. Drove straight through Waikiki (not that you could see the beach for all the highrises) and Honolulu without stopping until we hit the airport. Now being the cheapskates that we are and the fact the most campsites don’t open their gates until 6am and we had to be at the airport at 5am there was only one sensible thing to do. Pay $12 to park in the airport’s carpark and sleep in the car – well we weren’t going to pay $50 for a room in town! So we found a nice little dark spot in the carpark and feeling like naughty teenagers about to get up to no good (no we didn’t!) promptly got comfy for a few hours broken sleep. From Honolulu we flew to LA (I thought Chinese cities looked big, this place is huge!), hung around the airport for a few hours before then flying into Dallas (saw an amazing electrical storm of a hurricane below as we flew over northern Texas) where we got comfy again but this time on the airport chairs and not in a car. Spent the night in the airport before flying to Mexico the next morning…really should try and get some good sleep soon!!!