Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
of Waikiki lies this 133-acre grassy park (the Paki playground and a fire station make up the
remaining acreage) dotted with spreading banyans, huge monkeypod trees, blooming royal
poincianas, and swaying ironwoods. Throughout the open spaces are jogging paths, tennis
courts, soccer and cricket fields, and even an archery range. People come to the park to listen
to music, watch ethnic dancing, exercise, enjoy team sports, take long meditative walks, pic-
nic, buy art, smell the roses, and just relax. The park is the site of international kite-flying con-
tests, the finishing line for the Honolulu marathon, and the home of yearly Scottish highland
games, Hawaiian cultural festivals, and about a zillion barbecues and picnics.
Start at the:
1
Waikiki Beach Center
On the ocean side of Kalakaua Avenue, next to the Moana Surfrider hotel, is a complex of
restrooms, showers, surfboard lockers, rental concessions, and the Waikiki police substa-
tion.
On the Diamond Head side of the police substation are the:
2
Wizard Stones/Healing Stones
These four basalt boulders, which weigh several tons apiece and sit on a lava rock platform,
are held sacred by the Hawaiian people. The story goes that sometime before the 15th
century, four powerful healers named Kapaemahu, Kahaloa, Kapuni, and Kihohi, from
Moaulanuiakea in the Society Islands, lived in the Ulukoa area of Waikiki. After years of
healing the people and the alii (chiefs) of Oahu, they wished to return home. They asked
the people to erect four monuments made of bell stone, a basalt rock that was found in a
Kaimuki quarry and that produced a bell-like ringing when struck. The healers spent a ce-
remonious month transferring their spiritual healing power, or mana, to the stones, so the
natives could access it after the healers departed.
The great mystery is how the boulders were transported from Kaimuki to the marshland
near Kuhio Beach in Waikiki. Over time a bowling alley was built on the spot, and the
stones got buried beneath the structure. After the bowling alley was torn down in the
1960s, tourists used the stones for picnicking or drying their wet towels. In 1997, the stones
were once again given a place of prominence with the construction of a $75,000 shrine
that includes the platform and a wrought-iron fence. Since then the stones have become
something of a mecca for students and patients of traditional healing.
Further down the beach in the Diamond Head direction you'll find the:
3
Duke Kahanamoku Statue
Here, cast in bronze, is Hawaii's most famous athlete, also known as the father of modern
surfing. Duke (1890-1968) won Olympic swimming medals in 1912, 1920, 1924, and 1928.
He was enshrined in both the Swimming Hall of Fame and the Surfing Hall of Fame. He
also traveled around the world promoting surfing. When the city of Honolulu first erected
the statue of this lifelong ocean athlete, they placed it with his back to the water. There was
public outcry, because no one familiar with the ocean would ever stand with his back to it.
To quell the outcry, the city moved the statue closer to the sidewalk.
