Hawaii Rookies - Waialua, Oahu. Aweoweo Beach Park - post by maxyourtravel.com

It's hard to admit but prior to the summer of 2018 I was the only member of our family that had the pleasure of visiting the beautiful Hawaiian islands. As if that wasn't enough, no matter how many times I mentioned my own fond memories of vacationing there the hubby would scuff at them thinking how can this US territory be much different then any other tropical destination we've been to. The first day of our Hawaii vacation spent in the beautiful and peaceful town of Waialua at the Aweoweo Park beach was just the beginning of how the State of Hawaii would start answering that question for the hubs.

The Hawaiian rookies, and by that I mean our lil man and the hubby were blown away by every square inch of the islands we got to see and experience during our trip there starting with our first day in Waialua. Now the hubby totally understands why ever since the first traders set foot on the islands back in the 18th century Americans and folks from around the globe have been fascinated with our 50th state. This was also our daughters first trip out of state. Though at minus three months old her experiences were much more limited she traveled probably the most comfortably out of all of us ;-)

Our trip had a special occasion. Best friend's destination wedding, but in our typical style we made the best out of this opportunity and planned to see and do plenty of other things on top of the wedding as well.

The wedding was scheduled to take place in Honolulu which is on the island of Oahu. We were flying in July, so a couple of months after the eruption of Kilauea and that was a reason we decided to skip the Big Island this time around. Instead we were going to explore Oahu and Maui. We got there a few days before the wedding and decided to check out the North Shore of the island and the areas of towns Waialua and Haleiwa.

As you can see above the drive from Daniel K Inouye airport in Honolulu to the town of Haleiwa is about 45 minutes and you will pass Waialua first, about 10 minutes earlier, so it's roughly about an hour to drive up from the south of the island all the way to the north shore. We landed in Honolulu around midday, rented our car at the airport and drove up as soon as we could. I don't remember it being an unpleasant drive though the fact that I didn't seem to take any pictures means it probably wasn't anything special either. I do remember some pretty interesting views as we started nearing Waialua and hence the below pic showing some of the mountains in the background engulfed by the clouds.

Our lodging was a bottom floor of a 2 story Airbnb house adjacent to the beach in Waialua. A very functional, well located property - if you're interested in learning more about it I will post more in the future Our plans for the rest of this busy travel day were to grab a bite to eat asap and just relax at our local beach.

At first glance it may not seem like it but Waialua though quiet is actually a relatively populated location with quite a few beach front properties. There aren't a ton of dining options but the nearby Haleiwa, as I mentioned before is about a 10 minutes drive away. We drove to Haleiwa and found a great spot with a nice waterfront view and a good beach dining atmosphere. The Haleiwa Beach House restaurant had a bit of a wait since I believe we got there about a half hour before dinner time but that gave us an opportunity to check out its surroundings.

After thoroughly enjoying the food, the atmosphere and the views around the restaurant we decided to plan touring of the rest of the town of Haleiwa for another day and to rush back to our hotel, grab some beach gear and head out to our beach.

Thankfully our Airbnb was very well equipped with various beach paraphernalia and a short two minute walk later we were at the Aweoweo Beach Park beach enjoying the beautiful clear water, the sand and the views. Waialua has a couple of other beach parks as well but after seeing the Aweoweo Beach and how conveniently located it was to our lodging we had little desire to venture out any further and decided to contain our Waialua beach bumming to this location.

On our drive back from Haleiwa we got some rain. Hawaii gets plenty of rainfall though like most tropical places while they might be a daily occurrence they don't last very long and sometimes, probably more often than we assumed you can spot a rainbow on the horizon over the ocean.

The Aweoweo beach is a is a smaller, narrower beach but since it's located close to residential neighborhoods it's not overly crowded, so as you will see in the pics you do get plenty of privacy.

The narrowness makes this a great beach for a walk especially at sunset (more about those sunsets below) which we happily validated ourselves.

We were told by the locals that the beach park is a typical residential Hawaiian park. There is a playground there with picnic tables, restrooms and showers and a basketball court which makes it an even more ideal spot for outings with kiddos...

… and just as good for avid athletes past their prime like the hubby who even on vacation has to support his addiction and brick a few baskets ( he said it was getting dark already ;-) which is also when this picture was taken). I don't blame him though for not passing up shooting some hoops surrounded by this kind of a view.

Another local tip we received about this beach is that it's pretty good for snorkeling, though our snorkeling attempts in order to validate that claim came up a little short. Apparently this is a hang out spot for turtles and other sea life and there are in fact quite a few corals around but I didn't spot much more than a few fish. My luck, bad timing most likely because the water was clear enough and seemed ripe for more. We didn't venture our very far but just far enough to reach a few large rocks which have a great potential for spotting turtles. Below are a couple of photos from snorkeling at this beach. They were taken with help of a nifty waterproof phone case that we picked up on Amazon. These aren't the best snorkeling photos and while taking them with a phone camera won't render the best results the sights were enough to introduce our little man to snorkeling though we definitely found other, more clear spots on our trip to the islands.

Our favorite part about this beach was by far the views and the fact that it seemed very secluded and perfect for a family outing.

Of course our little man grabbed plenty of sand digging toys and turned into a beach mud architect for a good part of the rest of the day.

We stayed clear of Kilauea partly because we build our own volcanos ;-) and the Hawaiian sand at this beach especially was a great building material.

There was time for some beach maternity pictures. Both ladies equally enjoyed their photo session;-) ...

...and plenty of opportunity for our son's favorite ocean activity.

We don't surf so I'm not great at judging surf ability of waves. but I'm pretty sure we did not see anything close to what would be needed for surfing, not this day anyway. I heard the waves do get good enough for surfing here but these ones were just the perfect size for a four year old swing wave hopper.

And that's how we reached the favorite part of the day at the Aweoweo beach. The sunset.

As our son took some pretty nice, ever improving pics of his parents against the setting sun (the photos did have to get cropped a little bit but he really is getting better ;-) )...

The hubby had to admit that his first encounter with a Hawaiian beach sunset was very memorable, despite the cloudy sky. We were not quite sure why Hawaii sunsets are so beautiful but we read that one reason is the Islands' remote location, far from other large land masses the sun is allowed to dip into the Pacific with few disturbances that could interfere with the horizon. Also the view of the sun, while it sinks into the ocean in the West of course is enhanced by the vog (volcanic smog) that tends to travel from East to West with the Hawaiian trade winds. Finally the Islands longitudinal and latitudinal position gives them plenty of ripe climate for creating the right humidity, that at sunset helps with throwing the light into different directions and enhances the colors created by the setting sun. There were other, even more majestic sunsets to come as you will see in other posts on this blog but there was something about our first day on the Island, the majestically shining and falling asleep Helios, this narrow, under crowded, peaceful beach plus the fact that it literally took no more than 50 steps from our Airbnb to get there that made this day, on this beach pretty special.

So as lil man rode off into sunset on his favorite ride and the ride took those 50 or so steps back to our Airbnb we vowed to come back the next day for some more fun at the Aweoweo park beach.

I think you might be disappointed visiting Waialua or the Aweoweo beach if you're looking for something with touristy architecture or bustling with beach bodies or even packed with families but this is a perfect spot to start your encounter with the island of Oahu and its North side which is much more relaxing and really gives you an opportunity to take in a suburban local's experience on the Island's peaceful North Shore. If you like this post be sure to check out the rest of my blog at www.maxyourtravel.com for other write ups on our family's travel tips, experiences and reviews.

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