As a first-time visitor to Hawaii, one thing surprised me most

If my preconceptions of visiting Hawaii for the first time could be compared to the Hawaiian surf, they’d be the shoreline ripples at Oʻahu’s child-friendly Waikiki Beach, rather than the massive breaks of Banzai Pipeline on the island’s North Shore.

The dormant volcano Le’ahi or Diamond Head next to downtown Honolulu.Credit: Getty Images

I should know better than to underestimate a place. I blame The Brady Bunch, my childhood TV viewing where an episode featured a family visit to Waikiki. Teenager Peter Brady was plagued by a tarantula for picking up a cursed tiki. These were dreadful production blunders: tarantulas are not endemic to Hawaii, tikis represent gods and deities.

I admit that I, too, got it wrong: my five-day trip blows me away. Culture is as embedded as the island’s Le’ahi volcano (Diamond Head) that forms the stunning backdrop to Honolulu. Stick your head up from behind a Mai Tai cocktail at a Waikiki Beach bar, and you’ll uncover – as I do – rich traditions.

My arrival onto Oʻahu, the third-largest and most populated of Hawaii’s eight major islands, coincides with the annual Lei Day, which celebrates the spirit and meaning of the lei, the necklace of flowers (or shells, nuts or feathers) placed over my head on arrival by my host, Noelani.

“Lei is truly about aloha in its purest form,” she says. I’m about to discover what she means.

The first stop is Kapiʻolani Park, site of the 97th Oʻahu Lei Day Festival, where hundreds of locals and Native Hawaiians mingle at the craft stalls and lei-making tables that are surrounded by Indian banyan and monkeypod trees. Most attendees wear beautiful lei or lei po’o, a floral crown, that remain vibrant and fresh despite the humid breeze. Many are milling around a mature-aged gentleman, Master Lei Maker Bill Char. I’m privileged to meet this festival star, a talented ambassador of the ancient cultural practice.

Lei po’o workshop.

Suddenly, officials start scurrying (usually, locals are delightfully calm and leisurely) and cry “The queen is coming!” I’m temporarily confused; the Hawaiian Kingdom was overthrown in 1893 and the islands were annexed by the US in 1898 as part of its expansion into the Pacific. Instead, this is royalty of another kind: it is the Lei queen, Ku’uleialoha Llanos, the year’s elected “monarch” who organises the event to keep traditions alive. This custom is far from contrived. Surprisingly, nor is our next stop: Ala Moana Centre, known as the largest open-air shopping centre in the world.

Amid the chain stores, the centre’s best shops are owned and run by Native and local Hawaiian designers (Native Hawaiians are indigenous, with Filipino, Japanese and other backgrounds, while local Hawaiians are generally those who live, but are not born of Hawaiian ancestry. Both will distinguish themselves as such). Malie Organics offers an array of beauty products; Noho Home is crammed with a gorgeous range of homeware items, and Big Island Candies makes shortbreads and the likes of chocolate-dipped dried cuttlefish (the latter, a popular Hawaiian snack). I’m smitten with Manaola, where contemporary fashions feature geometric tribal motifs and Hawaiian flora. Our next stop, ’Iolani Palace, takes us into the past.

’Iolani Palace... a quirky mix of Italian Renaissance and Hawaiian design.

This mansion, a quirky mix of Italian Renaissance and Hawaiian design, was home to King Kalakaua and his successor, Queen Liliʻuokalani in the late 19th century. Our guide, the royal “chamberlain”, doesn’t break character as he leads us up the grand koa staircase and over the palace’s two furnished floors while pointing out European influences and traditional symbols, including the kahili, a feathered staff that indicates the presence of Hawaiian royalty. I’m enthralled.

At midday, trumpet notes float up from the park below, indicating the start of the weekly performance of the Royal Hawaiian Band. Formed in 1836, it’s one of the last links to Hawaii’s monarchy. Musically inclined royalty composed works, including Liliʻuokalani who wrote Aloha ʻOe. And the creations don’t stop there.

I spend the afternoon at HoMa, the Honolulu Museum of Art, where I’m surrounded by Modiglianis, Monets and Hawaiian art, including by Joseph Nawahi, the first Native Hawaiian to paint in the Western style.

Dinner is at Fete, an award-winning restaurant in Honolulu’s Chinatown, run by Hawaii-born chef Robynne Maii. The cuisine’s contemporary takes on island-inspired dishes is outstanding. As for local cuisine? There is a wondrous range of dishes of blended and distinct flavours, such as American Spam on Japanese rice wads (musubi) or cubes of fresh, local fish with teriyaki and sesame sauce (poke), all influenced by Japanese, Chinese, Filipino, Portuguese and Korean immigrants who arrived during the sugar plantation era.

Fete in Honolulu’s Chinatown.

After dinner, I attend the Hawaii Theatre, a stunning 1300-seat art deco theatre that opened in 1922. Performing is Kalani Peʻa, a Native Hawaiian Grammy award-winning singer-songwriter. He’s mesmerising. Although he sings in Hawaiian, I get the gist of each mele (song) thanks to the accompanying hula dancer whose graceful arm and hand movements and lithe hip-swaying evoke “love”, “rain” and “waterfalls”, as though playing a slow and elegant game of charades to beautiful music.

The next day brings another highlight: I join a lei po’o workshop. Our instructor, lei-maker Dillyn Lietzke, leads us patiently through the philosophy of choosing flowers (no waste), the traditional reason (gifts en route) and the art of making them (beautifully meditative and close to nature).

But if anything showcases the culmination of Hawaiian culture and connection to the ʻaina (land) in a contemporary format, it’s the evening’s spectacular Hawaiian-themed performance of Cirque du Soleil’s Auana. Thirty-four acrobats and contortionists tell the mo’olelo (stories) of Hawaii. Canoeists – representing the original Polynesian voyagers – paddle while on a giant see-saw (the ebbing ocean); two massive circles spin on a pivot as the acrobats jump and somersault within against a fiery red background (the volcano), and a backdrop of beach scenes from the 1950s illustrate the “golden age” of tourism. It’s astonishing.

The Ritz Carlton Oʻahu, Turtle Bay.

The next morning, I leave Honolulu and head north to the famed North Shore, home to legendary surfers Duke Kahanamoku and Eddie Aikau. The road follows the valley between two mountain ranges, the drier Waiʻanae and the lush Koʻolau.

My home for two nights is The Ritz Carlton Oʻahu, Turtle Bay. I cycle along the secluded shoreline as far as the perfect sandy arc and clear waters of Kawela Bay. A sign lists the many movies that have been filmed here, including Hunger Games: Catching Fire. I hope to spot a Hawaiian green turtle (no luck). But fortune is to come.

I spend my final evening night snorkelling with a lodge guide at my side and torch in hand. I get up close with not one, but two, octopuses. I’d hoped to see nature in Hawaii, but not this intimately.

On my final morning, I scan my room. What to do with my (now wilted) lei po’o? I eye the wastepaper basket, but the stirring advice of Master lei-maker Bill Char echoes: “The lei is synonymous with Hawaii. If somebody gives you a lei, it receives your mana, your life force, so you don’t give your own lei away or throw it away.”

I open the verandah door and carefully drape the lei po’o over the rail, willing the breezes to whip up and entrust it to nature, as is considered appropriate.

It seems I’ve embraced the spirit of aloha. Plunge deep and Hawaii will do that to you.

THE DETAILS

FLY
Qantas new non-stop Melbourne-Honolulu flights depart three times a week; daily Sydney departures. From $1306 for economy class. See qantas.com.au

STAY
Double room rates at The Ritz Carlton Oʻahu, Turtle Bay from $US980 ($1500) a night. See ritzcarlton.com

EAT
fetehawaii.com

DO
Cirque du Soleil Auana tickets from $US86 ($132).

Lei-making workshop $US120 ($180). See palaihawaii.com

MORE
gohawaii.com/islands/oahu

hvcb.org

The writer visited courtesy Qantas, Hawaii Tourism Oceania and the Oʻahu Visitors Bureau.