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!

Some of Hawai'i island's biosphere diversity

So I got  an early start today. Headed down and did some washing and got Marjan some breakfast treats. Even after doing the washing we still managed to get out before 9. We headed north and found a wonderful place to have our wake up swim. Like a few of the places along this coast there are big, forbidding gates. However we knew there was public beach access and they raised the gates for us. So we drove through the Manua Kea golf course and headed down to the beach. We had a nice swim and Marjan managed to get dumped by a wave on the way in. She was not happy.

We kept driving north through some amazingly contrasting scenery. Yellowish grass set off against a blue blue sea with the volcano on Maui in the distance. It was beautiful, but you will have to trust me. When Marjan drives she stops for no man. Anyway, I finally managed to get her to break when I offered her a break for a danish we had not consumed at breakfast. We found a nice spot to have morning tea.

As we drove north the countryside got greener. Obviously more rain up here. We were heading for Pololu Valley. As we got closer we were driving through jungle greenery. This little part of the big island is a little like the Na Pali Coast on Kaua'i where the mountains rise out of the sea. It looked good from above so down we went.

To a lovely black sand beach...

Backed by a gorgeous valley.

The walk was not overly strenuous, but the conditions were awful. High humidity and very little breeze meant that the walk back up produced buckets of sweat. One bloke who saw me on the way up asked if I was walking or swimming up the hill. 

We had spotted a likely lunch place on the way up. Hawi had looked like a really pretty little town. It was. We had some a burger each supplemented by smoothies (amazingly good) and as much iced water as we could get. We really needed to hydrate again. We then had a little wander around the artisan shops in the town. I loved some of the wooden bowls and plates being produced but they were too awkward to.......pay for. I would have paid for some beautiful necklaces for Marjan but she declined and shooed me out of the shop.

Eventually we had drunk as much as we could manage and moved on. From Hawi we drove up onto the Kohala Mountains. The road, as seems to be the way here, went straight up, and our little car struggled until we evened out. By then we were in rolling green hills. Cattle country. In looks not too dissimilar to South Gippsland....well apart from the temperature and the occasional volcanic mound. Some amazing views across the intervening lava field to Mount Hualalai. ( the forgotten mountain at only 8k feet). That dark patch in the middle of the lava plain is a town, Waikoloa. The dark is the trees.

We kept going and ended up at Waipi'o, which is the other end of the cliffs from Pololu, but a long drive around. We were not  up for the walk down and the shuttle had just taken off, so we settled for the view. You can just make out the waterfall dropping to the beach.

Of course along the way we saw lots of interesting things....

In shops

And some amazing churches

We got back to the resort in time for a swim and a beer before dinner. Lovely day again.

I may not get time for a blog tommorrow. It looks like being a lllloooonnnnggg day! In a good way though.

Aloha.