We had one goal today- climb the mountain of the Diamond Head crater. It would be Dirk’s third and my second time but we were a bit younger then. We were going to do it early in the day but learned that we had to make reservations (!) and the only slot left was at 4pm. I thought maybe they’d let us in a little early – 3:00?
Since we didn’t have any other plans we decided to to to take our time, enjoy walking along the beach, eat a late lunch and then walk to the trailhead. After lunch we discovered we went a little to far along the beach so, with advise from a passerby, were able to take a two buses to get us to the road to the trailhead. It was still a 1/2 mile walk in … Maybe I was already getting a little tired. 🙂
Once in the huge crater you can forget it is a crater since it is so large… We stopped to show our reservation and they didn’t care that we were an hour earlier – good! And then continued walking along smooth paths heading up to the mountain – not very engaging – until we arrived at the stone and rock paths that zig-zagged all the way up to the top. Oh- and there were many people on the trails of all ages. When I saw a woman wearing flip flops coming down the trail who was around my age I figured I would be fine (even after realizing we’d already done about 12,000 steps today). We took our time, chatted with people along the way and had a great time winding our way up the mountain.
After taking in more views of the area we learned that the entering the pillbox on top would lead a another downward pathway, some of it in the dark.
We waited for the right bus (#2) and it took all the way back to our hotel. Now we know! After a rest we headed out for dinner but stopped for a sunset on the way.
Pat and Dirk's 2024 blog - Wandering Australia and New Zealand 