Travelling back from the east coast to Honolulu you have the choice of either driving around the coast or driving back through the Koolau Range. Ever since first seeing the spectacular scenery and tunnels on "Hawaii Five-O" Mum has wanted to drive through the tunnels . There are 3 highways that link Kaneohe to Honolulu, the H3 (the John Burns Freeway) and routes 61 (the Pali Hwy) and 63 (the Likelike Hwy). The H3 is the most expensive road in cost per mile ever built, about US$80 million per mile. It was built to be a high-speed link between the Navy and Air Force bases at Pearl Harbour and Wickham with the Marine Corps base at Kaneohe Bay. That's Kaneohe Bay in the first picture. The base is on the peninsula that juts out on the left. Also in the bay is Coconut Island, the site where the first episode of "Gilligan's Island" was shot; it is where the SS Minnow was wrecked. The Koolau range runs right down the windward side of Oahu. It is the remains of an ancient volcano and both sides are extremely steep. The only way to get a road through is to tunnel. The H3 is the longest at 1.5 kilometres. On the windward side you approach the tunnels on a 10 km long, high 10 Km viaduct that runs along the Haiku valley, crossing over several Hawaiian sacred sites. Naturally, that led to much angst when the H3 was being built. We travelled all 3 roads and the H3 Tetsuo Harano tunnels are one of our Hawaiian highlights.
Labels: Hawaii
# posted by Bart Bear @ 2:06 pm
