The Big Island

So here I am, having arrived in Honolulu more than a week ago, and getting a bit of a culture shock - never had them before I don't think, but this place was a concrete jungle! I was like, "hey? where are the palm trees and beaches?" I know, very naive! - Meike and I went to the island, Hawaii. Hawaii, is actually the biggest island of the state of Hawaii, and there are several islands.....and I used to think my geography wasn't so bad! I completely didn't have a clue when I came here, that the capital of the STATE Hawaii, is actually on a much smaller island - Ohau.

Righty, enough of the geography lesson.....

mmmmm....how does this work?!?!?!

Got up at the ungodly hour of 4:30 to catch our flight. Flew to the neighbouring island in a small plane - almost forgot that they too still exist - and landed in a very wet Hilo (capital city). Yep, this is the rainy side of the island and boy did we notice! One thing though, i've never been to an airport before taht has an orchid garden while you wait to collect your luggage. What a lovely sight:-)

Some of the brilliant orchids on show at the airport. Aren't they gorgeous?

We went to the rental agencies and eventually gave in to the huge price tag that came with renting a car for four days. That's what happens when you're under 25 yrs here in the US and you want to rent a car: you pay $25 per day extra! What a drag, huh? But I guess, a bonus was that we got a big car so we could sleep in it and therefore not pay anything for accomodation (uhm....and I thought i'd sworn not to sleep in a car ever again after doing so many nights in our car in NZ!).

Look at our gorgeous car! Yeah whatever! It DRANK petrol! The typical american gas guzzler!

For the four days, we travelled around the whole island. First stop: a little bay with a fantastic array of Palm Trees growing almost horizontally, black rocks with loads of crabs walking around as well as colourful flowers of all kinds either growing in bushes or hanging down from trees.

mmmm...now let me see, this could be a comfy couch, don't you think?

Next we stopped to look at the Akaka Falls, quite a wonderful show of how throwing water off a 100m cliff face can produce such a lovely sight! It was in the middle of a rainforest "jungle" and we managed to spot several different birds (most of them very brightly coloured) and huge palms, ferns and tropical flowers..... We had a chance to watch a native hawaiien weave baskets out of palm tree leaves so effortlessly and make something truely beautiful.

Palm tree leaf weaving

From here we drove along the coast up to the almost northern most tip of the island passing through cute little towns and taking a nap in the car at some point (getting up at 4:30 does that to you!) where we watched the sun set over these ruins of a massive temple - Mookini Heiau. "It is one of the oldes and most historically significant heiaus in Hawaii..." where the chiefs offered human sacrfices to the war god. Set in a desolate area facing the ocean, it was a very eerie place. It's really hard to explain and describe but you felt like you were definately tresspassing. After walking back in the dark back to our car (30min) we made our way to a place that looked like a reasonable spot to stop and sleep. Eventually we found a place by the beach and slept like logs till 5 the next morning.

The Ruins we saw set against the threatening clouds that came our way but luckily didn't burst!

From here we drove to a huge beach resort where they have sevearl lava formations, of which one: The lava tube. Te lava tube forms when the top layer of the lava hardens and eventually when the source of the lava runs out, the lava runs out from beneath this layer, leaving a nice "tube". THey weren't as impressive as the one I saw later in my trip. This resort had a golf course and what was really funny was how the greens where nestled inbetween pockets of lava. really funny that. What was very interesting though, were the petroglyphs. These are stone/lava drawings made by hawaiien natives some 1000 yrs ago! really interesting to think these were drawn so long ago! Meike also had a fun time try to coax some wild cats to drink some milk we had near to us, but they were too timid for that. They were cute though!

Lava with petroglyphs

By the time we left here at 10am, we were roasting and ready to go snorkling. I had read in the lonely planet guide that there was this one bay which was ideal for beginners because of its sheltered nature and that it was FULL of marine life. We headed there, stopping at the city of Kona, the second city of this island but on the opposite side. We didn't see much there. It's a bit overrun by touristy things so we gave it a miss after stopping for a much needed caffeine fix at Starbucks. Well, I can tell you taht i was like a kid that had tasted a sweet for the first time when we went snorkling. It was amazing! So MANY fish and so many DIFFERENT kinds it was amazing! The type you see in aquariums and here I was swimming amoung them! And then Meike yells at me to come quickley because there's a turtle...Meike says she's never seen me swim that fast, I was so excited! And so there you have it: I SWAM WITH MY FAVOURITE ANIMAL....THE TURTLE:-) One even managed to brush past me! We had bought an underwater camera so Meike got some pics of me, though we'll have to wait till we run out of film on that one and it gets developed. Really hope it worked!

Only drawback with this bay was that it didn't have a nice beach so we left a couple of hours later, with a drawing each from an artist there on the beach that gave us each a drawing of his. We felt we had to give him a donation. While stuck in a bit of a traffic jam, we spotted a "kona coffee" plantation. We headed right for it! Kona coffee is very expenisve and exclusive coffee and this is all because of the way they grow it. It's grown like grapes are in vineyards and is completely organic and tell you what: It's absolutely lovely! A wonderful treat! Before we had some coffee though, Meike had a bit of a nap beucase she was really dead. And since she was driving it seemed like a good idea she have a good sleep and then coffee.

From the coffee plantation, we headed to this black beach. And sure enough, it truely is BLACK! I have never in my life seen something so beautiful! the contrasts of colour: Blue, turquiose sea, black beach, green and yellow palm trees....look at the pictures.

That evening we met some native people and they sang us some songs and they were really impressed with how tall Meike was. It was so funny! 6 foot 1?!?!?!? Really? And then she stood up and touched the roof easily while one of the guys had jsut been jumping up to touch it! It was so funny! We slept here that night, once agian in our lovely car. Pretty comfy.....until Meike started shouting at 5:30 in the morning:"look at the sunrise! My God! Look at that! Isn't it awesome?!?!?!?" Needless to say, it was beautiful and got us out of bed reasonably quickly:-)

Beautiful huh?

And then at 6 we were in the water....snorkling! we swam very far and then decided it may not be such a good idea since there are no shark nets and well, ...... so we headed back, a bit dissapointed becausae not that many things to see, until we were almost back at the beach when we spotted a turtle, and then another, and then another, and then another, and then another........there were loads of them...all looking for seaweed. It was so cute! Many of them had been tagged and had numbers on them. I was just lovin' it! BEAUTIFUL!

From here we left for the Volcano National Park. We had to pay an entrance fee and discovered we had no more cash. So we had to drive on to the nearest little town and draw some money. The park is amazing. We stopped at the visitor's info centre and read a lot about the formation of the Hawaiien islands etc... We stopped at all sorts of sites, mostly enjoying the awesome views, sulphur smells and colours. We walked on fields of lava, and at night enjoyed wating the lava fall into the sea....from red to black and then a plume of steam. Really amazing. Also saw some funny things like the road that once went to this town, now covered by a lava flow, though sometimes appearing again. I walked down a long lava tube which was really impressive! At night we watched the lava fall into the sea with a violent reaction, and sat with two americans watching this spectacle. They had a much better camera then we had, so they said they would email us some pictures. I hope they send them so i can show you how wonderful it was!

Hmmmm....so found a small crack. Any bigger ones?

Now that's more like it! Meike and I standing in the Southwest Rift.

Now let's see. Should I really be standing here? Me standing ontop of a huge naturally formed lava arch.

The plume of smoke visible from miles away, of where the molten lava hits the sea.
Me sitting ontop of Lava.....lots of it!

The flowing lava didn't pay much attention to the fact taht it was covering a road...tut tut tut.

The colours of the lava where it had cracked apon cooling. Cool huh?

That night we slept at an altitude of over 3000 feet and it was cold. We didn't sleep very well so at 4:30 we finally gave up and just went to the lookout of one of the craters to see the sun come up. There weren't that many clouds so the sunrise wasn't as spectacular as the day before. But on the way to the beach once again, we got to drive on this lava field for a while because the highway had been closed down by a lava flow. The road was a beautiful sight at some spots becuase of the black lava, blue sky and red gravel for the road.

Red road. Don't you think it's beautiful?

The last day we just travelled down to this one area of the island which is known to be the "hippy" area. It was beautiful. With the road running dead through a rainforest and with several different kinds of beaches, it was an idyllic surrounding. We also stopped at a lava tree monument, where trees were surround with lava, burned to a crisp and now you have the ground comvered with lava and some tree lava molds sticking up to 10 feet into the air. Pretty weird place, but once again, seething with plantlife and loads of flowers.

Our flight was only leaving that evening and we had some time to spare, so we spent some time in a farmers market and bought ourselves some mangoes (YUM YUM!!!!!!!) and headed for a little beach we had stumbled apon here in Hilo on our first day on the island. nice and relaxing.

So yeah, that's about it. THis has been a mamoth project to update you guys on what i've been up to! I hope you enjoyed it and didn't fall asleep! And as for coming to such a wonderful place, your creative side can't help but awaken from slumber. Meike and I had a ball making some artistic photos. Enjoy!