2013-10 Hawaii

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Mon, Oct 28: At the Hilton hotel

We arrived yesterday. The Hilton Hotel is in the Waikoloa Beach resort area, north of the Kona airport.

This morning, and every morning, the birds were wanting breakfast.

We were serenaded by the birds singing loudly every day, very early morning and evening. By a LOT of birds.

Watch video of birdies singing in a large window

That sound in the video is not a waterfall or rain...its the birds!

We drove to Kailua-Kona to explore a bit before our dinner cruise. Had a very good shaved ice with ice cream or frozen yogurt in the middle, capped with sweetened condensed milk (making it a "Snow Cap") at Scandinavian Shave Ice.

Saw a turtle:

Other sights:

Hulihee Palace, with Mokuaikaua Church behind (the first church on the big island.

Mon, Oct 28: Dinner Cruise

Took a dinner cruise on glass bottom boat. Saw manta rays, but only stopped for 15 minutes. The point of the cruise for most seemed to be the open bar and maybe the hula demonstration.

Hula demostration:

View video in large window

We also saw boats with people in the water in a circle with lights in the circle to attract the manta rays. That might be interesting.

Tue, Oct 29: Driving the north island, Vanilla company

Drove to north point of the big island. Not much there but a private landing strip.

This is the original King Kamehameha statue. Forged in Florence, Italy in 1880, the ship that was ferrying it to Honolulu sank off the Falkland Islands. Believed to have been lost at sea, a replacement statue was commissioned and was erected in Downtown Honolulu. However, the original statue was miraculously found and recovered in 1912. The restored statue was then installed near Kamehameha’s birthplace at Kapaau.

Watch out for those coconuts!

Stopped at Pololu Valley overlook. Beautiful valley, with a trail to go down,

but we had a lunch engagement at the Hawaiian Vanilla Company...
Very interesting and delicious lunch - everything served has vanlla in it. They also gave a presentation on growing the vanilla plant. It is the second most expensive spice after saffron, in large part because it is very labor intensive. The flowers must be hand pollinated, and only bloom one day a year for 4 hours - fortunately not all at the same time. They gave a presentation on how they prepared each item on the menu, how the vailla plants are raised, and how to make your own vanilla extract.

We then walked to the shade house to see the vanilla plants, which take four years to mature and start producing beans.

We then drove on toward Hilo:

Tue, Oct 29: Akaka Falls Park

We stopped at Akaka Falls park.

A gecko on the flower:

Little white flowers in the trees:

Then we took the new and much improved Saddle road back to the Kona side.

Wed, Oct 30: Kohala Waterfall Hike

Went on the Kohala Waterfall hike in north Kapaau. You see several small waterfalls. Not much rain in a while, so waterfalls were running low. But still a pretty hike. The guide was very informative about plants, the climate zones on the Big Island (11 of the world's 13 zones), and Hawaiian legends.

Harvesting taro from the farm:

Restored terraces:

It was a good hike up to the time a wild boar charged through the group, leaving me with a nasty gash on my head ... well that sounds better than the fact that I slipped on a rock and hit my head. It was right at the end of the hike. I ended up in the emergency room - six stiches, and xrays (no cracks in the bone around the eye). Since it was going to take a while to get my stitches in, the tour group, including Mary, went back to the resort area, and Mary drove back up to pick me up.

Near Hawi, as we were driving back to the resort, we saw the most vivid double rainbows, from one end to the other.