Capital P

So we decided that after 8 hours of driving yesterday we would walk today. So we headed off from ANU to the lake and across the bridge to the Parliamentary precinct. It was too early to visit the National Library, so we went and checked out the main axis of Burley Griffins dream.

By then it was getting on for nine so we headed up to the Old Parliament House. The attendants werearranging  so floral tributes to Gough as we wandered in. The building is now a museum for democracy and it was fun roving around. It was so small!

Marjan enjoyed being speaker.

We had morning tea inside with a nice view of one of the old courtyards. Time to move on to the new house on the hill.

There was a bit of security about but nothing overbearing and everyone making fun of my Mr Grumpy T-shirt. We got in for a bit of a second reading debate, but not a lot of actual parliamentarians. Still nice to see democracy in action.

Certainly bigger and more spacious than the old. But the highlight was the roof.

Back down the hill we went via one of the old parliamentary gardens. The rose garden outside was a bit of a disappointment, unlike most of the rest which was living up to our hopes.

We decided we needed lunch, so the National Portrait gallery cafeteria was called for, with an outside table and a nice view. Reinforced we wandered the gallery. Some nice stuff. I was taken by the liveliness of Ms Montez, the cheekiness of the Barry Humphrey's self portrait and the lovely photo of Margaret Whitlam at dusk. 

Next stop was the High Court. It is an odd building with each of the three courts apparently suspended in mid air. Nice comfy couches.

Then the National Gallery. It is building quite a collection. We concentrated on the Australian section and quite enjoyed that. Plenty to like...Bracks for me. We did not see everything, just not enough time, but we did enjoy a coffee at tree top level. Canberra has so may nice cofee places in these national monuments.

Back on the road via the sculpture garden and over the bridge to the Carillion.

We dodged around Canberrians as they jogged, cycled and generally enjoyed the lake. We strolled back home and were absolutely spent. We had been out for over 10 hours walked at least 8km between buildings and spent time wandering each. A full day! We decide that dinner was a bit hard so we stayed on campus and had a caf type lunch.

Vale Gough

Ok so this is a travel blog not a political one.....but..........we heard about the death of Gough Whitlam via a phone call from Keyne whilst driving past the dog on his tucker box and I had to say something. This immigrant's son would not have a degree, and possibly not even a sense of justice if it weren't for Gough. The free education is obvious and a whole generation flourished because of it. The other was a timing thing. I suppose i developed a political sensibility at the time of Gough and Malcolm striding the political stage like colossuses. Whilst neither one is as angelic nor the other as demonic as they were idealised at the time, the battle between good and evil was a way for a young man to start seeing the political fight between self interest and the broader good. So bye Gough from a grateful spaniard.

The actual travel? Well it was mostly a drive so nothing particularly exciting. We drove out via Yea and Seymour to avoid Melbourne peak hour traffic. I always like the Goulburn valley around Trawool. They are doing a rail trail that looks like it will be excellent. We stopped at Seymour for second breakfast and then drove on to Holbrook. Holbrook is famous for having a submarine as the centrepiece of its main park. Apparently because Holbrook is the name of a famous submariner and they kind of sponsor submarine folk. I particularly liked the torpedo across from the pub.

I had forgotten, and quite enjoyed, the rolling hills in this part of the world. They were quite green and lovely and went on forever. The sheep in NSW are quite odd. They seem to cluster together in a very friendly clumps, unlike the Victorian sheep who just loll about.

Anyway made Canberra and settled into the digs at ANU. It is right on campus and quite nice with a lovely peaceful cloister. However, less hotelly that normal places, so no Canberra maps available at reception. And no wifi......the horror!!!! We wandered about without a map and managed to find the city centre. Hardly worth it. No tourist office and no people. Just some odd sculptures and the odd wandering goth, single mother or homeless person. When people say Canberra is dead this is where they got the idea.

We drove the 3km out of town to get to a tourist centre to get a good map. Google maps wanted Marjan to drive on the wrong side of the road. She resisted! We got our maps and decided to risk some roundabouts without one.....yep ended up going the wrong way. Still; the traffic hardly makes any difficulties when getting back on track. 

Made it back to the digs and ate at the University House restaurant called....Boffins.....what wags. Not bad. By then we were buggered so spent the evening watching TV....well episodes of The Newsroom via our ipad. 

Bye for now.

The final act

Last day or at least the last day we could do anything. We have a 6:13, yes it is an odd time, flight out in the morning. So we are getting our stuff together early this evening.

I did however manage to go out and do some shooting of the boring stuff Marjan did not want to stop the car for. Firstly I drove up towards Waikoloa and stopped a few times. The mountains in these are the Kohala Mountains. Yes it is another volcano, the oldest on the island.

Waikoloa village is just visible in the foreground

I then took the road along the Kohala. This side is dry the other is wet jungle.

Got back to the resort about eight. Our check out was not till twelve so we lazed by the pool, reading and swimming and people watching.

We then went to Hapuna Beach. It is rated by someone, can't remember who now, as among the top 10 US beaches. It was nice, a little wavy for Marjan but we did swim. And picnicked on the beach, under a tree where we managed to get some shade. We later realised there were quite a few mice, obviously because visitors throw their leftovers and peels among the rocks. We moved a little away from the rocks and the mice were  no bother. The beach was nice, but not top 10 Victorian let alone Australian beaches.

Left after we were suitably sunburnt and checked into our close to the aiport hotel. We booked this because we did not fancy a trip across the island for a  6:13 flight. As it turned out it is about the same distance to the airport as the Marriott but we had already booked it so here we are with another partial water view.

See you all soon!

Bye bye volcanos

Another early start to try to push the little chevy over the heights again. We decided to go up Manua Kea this time. You cannot drive to the top in a rental, only to 9,000 feet. The rest is 4WD country. The little car really struggled over the long 17% ascents. We thought it was going to blow. Anyway we got there and the view was average.

The young woman was just opening up the information centre and set up the telescope so that we could look at the sun. She had one filter to show us sun spots and another to show sun flares. That was interesting.

We asked about short walks as the ten hour walk to the summit did not appeal. She suggest we ascend  a nearby cinder cone. Did not seem to bad and Marjan headed off in the lead.

In the rarefied air she was soon trailing....or so I thought. By the way, that is two small cinder cones behind Marjan and Mauna Kea is the black peak.

In fact she had been gem hunting and found a number of interesting olivine samples.

The view from the top was kinda good. In one direction, as you have seen, we had Mauna Kea a totally black peak. Apparently there is a lake up there, a tropical lake, that is fed from the permafrost. Awesomely nerdy.

On the other we have Mauna Loa, the most massive volcano in the world. It has 14km of piled lava, it is 9 km from ocean floor to peak and it is so heavy it has deformed the earth's crust. More nerdy stuff for you. The shadows on it are more recent lava flows. So we are standing somewhere above 9,000 feet looking down at the clouds being pushed into the high valley ( about 5-6,000 feet) between mountains. The little hill in front of the clouds is another volcano.

We really did not want to leave, it was a special landscape.

But leave we did! Into those clouds that covered the eastern part of the island....again. We  were heading for the north east coast which faces the trade winds and is therefore wet. Jungle really. We dropped by to see the Akaka falls among the interesting bamboo and odd flowers.

We stopped off at the pretty little town of Honomu for a potter. Lovely little place with lots of interesting artisan type shops.

It seemed very interesting coastline but it was hard to actually get a glimpse, as the foliage was blocking everything. What we saw looked good. We found a spot for lunch under the shade of the highway bridge overhead with some water in front and behind.

Not many beaches along this rugged coast, but we stopped occasionally.

And finally back to the resort pool for a dip and a book. 

We are now fed and rested and ready for our last day in Hawaii. I probably will not get a blog entry up as we will be getting an early night for a 6am plane.

Book him Caro.....nuisance oz

Today was one of those stupid quests. We, for that read I, as Marjan is not one to plan for a holiday, had heard that Hawai'i, the island as well as the state, had a green sand beach. One of only four in the world. I doubt Guam, Norway or The Galapagos are on our immediate agenda, though the last one sound amazing, so off to South Point we went searching for green sand.

In some ways a boring day as we had to drive for about two and a half hours to get there. Still it was okay to watch the world flit past my windscreen as Marjan drove on the way down.

When we turned off the main road to head down to South Point we came across a sign advertising the last coffee before South Point, so naturally we though we would take a look inside, the coffee was good-it made water come from my eyes. A real espresso machine, tasty strong coffee....and a giant macadamia cookie (I am allowed to call them that here but not in Oz) hit the spot. Really the coffee place was an adjunct to a shed in someones back yard. The rest of the shed was an orchid hothouse. We took a look and were quite impressed by the variety and beauty....well Marjan was, I was along for the ride.....after all she was doing the nerd thing and driving me to a green beach.

As the road narrowed we got to rolling green fields with a background of the sea. Like Prom country back home but without the cold. Finally got there and we were pleased that our (my) research had paid off and there were locals willing to take us from the end of the road to the green beach. We COULD have hiked the two and a half mile of 4WD ruts through the heat, but we just did not want to. We agreed a price and hopped on the back of a ute driven by Glenn, a local who makes some extra cash doing this in what is essentially his back yard. Marjan loved it.

Glenn drove quire carefully and gave us a bit of commentary along the way. He was particular about pointing out the remnants of a Polynesian fishing village along this rugged coast (circa 700 according to Glenn). We discussed the difficulty of getting any fresh water here and the only local source was hours away in the mountain.

Anyway the green beach has a number of names Papakolea Beach, Mahan Beach and just Green Sand Beach. It is essentially half of an old cinder cone volcano that has had the sea rushing in. The olivine in the adjoining rocks washes up onshore and as it is heavier that some of the other material hangs around longer.

Glenn pointed out the path to the bottom and promised to hang around for us, whilst he chatted to his mates and cousins. It was a relatively easy clamber down.

The green particles are quite brilliant green but are of course mixed with many others. It was quite an interesting little shore break and I managed to get myself thrown around a little bit. The surf filled my bathers pockets with sand and when I took it out it had brilliant green crystals in it. Anyway without any shade or a calm spot for Marjan to swim in we headed back up.

Glenn took us back via a slightly different route and pointed out how there are places where the olivine is much more concentrated. We watched as people walked by this spot he showed us..

The rocks themselves were encrusted with green crystals.

Nerdy though it was, we both enjoyed the beach and the ride in the back of Glenn's ute.

We headed down the other fork in the road to South Point. It is the most southerly Point of the USA. Some interesting coastline and some interesting fishing. High cliffs with a hole dropping down to sea level. Some guys had been jumping in and getting inside the cave. 

Off the cliff people had set up tents and were fishing in the deep waters. There were pole holders banged/drilled into the rocky shore. Whilst we were there one guy hooked a marlin.We could see it leaping off-shore. The guys had no idea what to do.....I've never got a marlin before..he yelled....what the heck do I do now........well a little saltier than that. He had plenty of advice and many onlookers,including a pod of spinner dolphins that swam past. Eventually he lost the marlin but had plenty of folk explaining what to do next time.

By now we were hungry. We would have loved to have stayed and lunched here but there was no shade. The local brought their own....the guy above had a tent set up behind him. We headed back to a little park we had spotted along the way and found a table for our picnic among the chickens and other birds and a couple of locals playing a tune.

After lunch I noticed I had a few missed calls on the phone. I called the number and asked what they wanted. Turns out it was the Police and I had been constantly pocket dialling the emergency number. The dispatcher on the end of the line was quite incredulous that I did not know my phone number, so took my name instead. USA security organisations now have my name as a no-good waster of public resources and my fingerprints on file. I am in deep trouble. Marjan of course thought this was hilarious. I thought she was going to go off the road during this conversation.

By the time we got back to mild beaches the weather had turned grey and we were tired. We therefore did the middle aged sun tourist thing. We had a beer by the pool at our resort. Swam a couple of times and threatened to read some of our book but mostly watched people going to the resort luau. 

When that got old we went and had fish and chips at the mall and bought some lunchy things for tomorrow's picnic. Marjan has her heart set on a thrift shop. They are the US equivalent of an Op Shop. We stopped at one in Kaua'i but it was closed due to impending hurricane. We will see if we can find one on the way to a waterfall or a jungle or a volcano or some other boring thing.

Mahalo. A hui hou.

Our marriage descends into the pit of despair

Got up early as we had a big day planned. We were out the door by 7:30. Over the mountain again and off to the Volcano National Park. We had gotten up to brillant sunshine but on the descent to the other end of the island we struck cloud, the fog then rain. It cleared a bit near Hilo but drizzle kicked in again as we drove into the national park.

We oriented ourselves by getting a map and eating a danish. Balancing the intellectual and physical needs is important. We did this whilst watching the volcano smoke..

Having got that out of the way we decided to descend into the caldera. Well not the one above. That is closed. A bit dicey for all concerned. No, there is a lava lake connected to this one just to the left of picture.

Our descent commenced in rainforest. It was drizzling at times and just damp at other. We were about 1200 metres above sea level in a quite interesting forest that gets about 120 inches of rain a year. Lots of orchids here apparently. We only spotted this bamboo orchid.

The drizzle kept up all the way down and across the lava lake. Apparently this exploded around 1959 and solidified in 1992. It was what Mordor would look like. Quite eerie, but nature kept trying to find footholds. The little trees looked like hakeas with lovely red flowers.

We finally got to the base and it was the strangest landsacpe. Black undulating lava flows with cracks everywhere. Occasinal patches of lighter colour where steam vents bring up minerals and steam vents popping up here and there. That is steam coming out of a crack in the rocks behind us.

I kept having to take off my glasses because the drizzle kept coming in flurries. It is 2.4 miles across the lava lake and we eventually made it and started our ascent. When we looked back we could see the lighter coloured trail left by walkers. Off to the right you can see the lighter patch of the steam vent we visited (naughty us venturing off trail).

Well, back up into the rainforset we went. We got back to the car almost three hours after we left. So we headed to Volcan House for a feed of raw fish ...and chips.....I got s strange look when I ordered the chips to go with the poke stack.....but it was a hungry pair who sat down to a view not unlike the first photo.

When we were sufficiently recovered, we drove down to the coast to see the most recent lava flows. As we descended the weather improved and was quite warm and sunny and the sea blue. You can see the 1973 flow.

Well we finally made it to the end of the road and checked out the flows that have been happening since 1983. I tried to keep them off the road but did not succeed.

Weird shapes

Aftr a while,we headed back. To give this some context, that is like looking up at Mt Dandenong from around Kilsyth. The 1972 lava flow,is the dark patch....just a small one.

And this is the lava field around Mauna Ulu. A little volcano, but it created a nice arrangement of shapes around itself. The lump in the distance is the volcano 6 miles away.

Well we visited a couple of other places but by then we had been there for over seven hours. Back we drove to Hilo, where we stopped off to buy sneakers...at cheap prices...and a bite to eat.

Our plan was to head to Mauna Kea for the stargazing. However the cloud got thicker and on the mountain became impenetrable fog. So instead we had a hair raising drive in the dark through thick fog on unfamiliar roads. They say a little stress is good for you. We had our share tonight.

However all's well now. We are back, recoverd and heading to noddy land.

Bye from Marjan, who descended to hell with me and made it back!