Hawaii: Kona/Hilo Day 2

Today was a big adventure day. We drove from Kona to Hilo. On our way we stopped and has breakfast at Liliku Café. I had a crepe with cottage cheese, strawberries, bananas, and yogurt. A little strange, but tasty.

After, we continued up the coast. Our first stop was at Akaka Waterfalls. It has a great flow and beautiful greenery around it. There was a rainbow in the mist coming off of the falls. We then took the Four Mile Drive, which is a small road that wove around the coastline. A lot of the time it was covered by trees, but when you could see the coast it was breathtaking. Then we stopped in Hilo for ice cream before heading to the boiling pots. The lookout wasn’t very good, so we climbed down a makeshift path onto them. There hadn’t been much rain the night before, so they were gurgling rather than boiling. We also stopped at Rainbow Falls, which was smaller than the Akaka Falls.

From there, we stopped at a burger joint called Cronics for lunch. At 3:30, out tour guide, Ben, picked us up for our sunset lava tour. He was a very funny driver and had some great stories for us. He was actually from Hilo, so he knew and loved the area. We went through a lot of winding forests to Aunties Macadamia Nut Farm. She moved to Hilo 20 years ago and bought this farm 12 years ago. Macadamia nuts can be harvested all year round, though she chooses to harvest only about 4 months. Her farm lead all the way down to the ocean.  

Our next stop was the black sand beaches. Most of it is gone because of a past lava flow that added 1/4th of a mile to the island in 1983. The only way to find it, without aimlessly wandering is to follow a red rock path through the lava field. The surf was high when we were there, and Ben told us that it had a notoriously strong undertow.

A little after 6, we headed to the active lava spot. Because it's been popping up at random and trying to flow over a lot of the roads, they had people parking father away, but Ben had us move a traffic cone so we could park up front. The viewing wasn't great, but we could see some flow. We did see a tree go up in flames. I think if we could have been 500 yards closer, we would have had a great view. One of the problems with the unpredictability of lava. Ben cooked us chicken for dinner at Auntie's.  We got back to our hotel around 10:30.

Hawaii: Kona

And now, we’re headed to Kona, the Big Island. We took a little island hopper from go!Mokulele over to Kona. We arrived around 1 and checked into the Hapuna Bay Prince Hotel. I must say, I’ve never walked into a hotel before and been breathless from the view. The hotel is built on a lush green hillside, so when you walk into the lobby, you’re looking down over gardens, the pool, and the private beach. It seemed like it was out of a movie.

We grabbed a bite to eat at the pool bar and spent a good part of the afternoon lying by the pool. We drove down to Hapuna for dinner at a little local place, Kona Seafood. I had Oysters Rockefeller.

Hawaii: O'ahu Day 5

August 1, 2010

Today we drove around the South-Eastern loop of the island. We went snorkeling at Wanauma Bay, O’ahu fish sanctuary and nature preserve. There was more colorful coral here than the day before, with some pink and blues, along with some yellow and purple. Again we saw lots of fish. I saw a spotted eel and a green sea turtle, some foot long parrot fish, and this one black fish with an irredescent line along its upper and lower fins which it used to move rather than side fins. The water was choppy so visibility wasn’t great and there were surges coming in from the South.

After snorkeling, we had to fight a rip tide to get back to the beach. We’re all experienced swimmers, and we were warned about the rip tide, but I’ve never experienced anything like it. I was seriously concerned about raking my body across coral as we tried to fight through a 10 foot gap. But we made it back to shore eventually.

Stopped at Kona Brewing Company for lunch.

We continued along to various lookouts. You could see waves crashing over rocks. We also stopped at the blowhole. Apparentaly we missed Johnny Depp and the crew filming Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides by 2 days. It’s featured in the scene where Jack is blindfolded and various other scenes in “the wilderness”. Waves weren’t huge so it was only moderate in height, but still pretty cool to see. Went to the Atlantic Seafood Company for dinner. I had a very nice Mahi Mahi in a macadamia nut crust.