After breakfast we bought some film from Waimea. The guy in the photo shop sold me a single thirty six exposure film for an outrageous USD 9! Dissatisfied with that Ian told me to try the supermarket who had four twenty four exposure films available to me for USD 14. I think the photo guy had made himself a beautiful profit!
We drove south of Waimea again, thankful for the absence of rainclouds, and were delighted to find that the summit of Mauna Kea could be sighted from the road, beyond the Parker Ranch. In the foreground rigid cacti plants were standing strong in amongst the long grass which was blowing in the wind.
We proceeded along the Saddle road, normally prohibited to rental vehicles but our contract only advised us against travel down it, not prohibited, and after photographing Mauna Kea and cloud covered Mauna Loa, I saw a beautiful sight of two chestnut coloured horses beside a fence, both rubbing their chins on each others back. Further on, amongst the rolling grass coloured hills, some cattle were resting beside a tree, shading from the sun which gave the grass a golden glow.
Turning off of Saddle road we drove up the summit road to an elevation of 9,000 feet to the Mauna Kea visitors' centre. Outside was a Celestrion telescope pointing at the sun through which we could clearly see some sun spots and incredible solar flares emanating from the right hand side of the sun. It was amazing. Ian has a wonderful photograph of the sight through the telescope. We were above the clouds at this point.
Driving around Hawaii so far, especially the Big Island, has been interesting. Every few minutes you have to equalise the pressure in your ears as there is a constant change in elevation. The cruise control on the Chevrolet is at its element in these conditions. Although it's not too hot at reducing speed when going downhill, when faced with a slight incline it drops a gear or two and lunges forward at great acceleration, normally immediately prior to a bend. It's quite unnerving at first!
At the foot of Mauna Kea was a stunning vista of the lava field with Mauna Kea behind. As I walked over the lava the surface crackled beneath my feet, sounding like fragile charcoal bricks. You could see the heat wave rising from the now extinct Mauna Kea volcano. Where some lava tubes had collapsed big holes had appeared and in the broken rock a full spectrum of colours could be seen, like a rainbow, albeit very pale. It's increible what can be found by the side of the road.
Back in Waimea we paused for a hot drink at Starbucks Coffee which at 15:00 became lunch. It started to rain again while we were inside.
We travelled further south to Holoholokai Beach Park where we walked the 1.4 mile track to the Puako petroglyphs which was a bit like walking through Africa it was so dry and barren. Before leaving the beach park we spotted some fairly big fish mucking about in the rock pools and then went to the Mauna Lani Bay Hotel to inspect their saltwater stream containing black tipped reef sharks. I was pleased to find that they no longer kept such graceful creatures in their confines although they did have plenty of other beauties that the water was too shallow for.
Driving further south the road became surrounded by black lava fields with the odd brightly coloured bougainvillae standing out against them, the lava fields stretching to the blue Pacific ocean. It was stunning.
By now time was getting on and the sun was lowering in the sky. It was time to search for accommodation.
We arrived in Captain Cook village and turned off to Napoopoo ending up descending hundreds of feet and having to equalise again before reaching Kealakekua Bay which is frequented by spinner dolphins. It was still raining and now dark and we hadn't found our chosen bed and breakfast. We searched for a while on the main highway but after much tooing and froing we settled for the Manago Hotel on highway 11. Dinner was taken at a nearby Mexican where the best thing in the cafe style eatery was their choice of music. A Rush of Blood to the Head was being played. My chicken enchiladas arrived drowned in gravy. I found the most appealing item on my plastic party plate the coriander flavoured rice, to my surprise. I was quite put off by the number of people, mostly long loose haired adolescents and young children and dogs that were free to roam in and out of the kitchen. It seemed that all the people sitting outside when we arrived had the freedom to enter the kitchen, we had assumed they were all cutomers. Oops.
At Manago Hotel we discovered that the room is not half board but we do have a private bathroom. Ian and I resorted to squeezing spots and I plucked grey hairs from my head before reading up on the history of the hotel and finding it to be a Japanese family run hotel since 1917. The couple running it now are the grandson of the founding manager, and his wife.
We had driven 164 miles today aroung Hawaii.
I'm retiring before 23:00 again! Yippee!
As I prepared to go to bed, down by the side of the bed creeping in the shadows was the largest and ugliest cockroach I have ever seen. It made my grimace! Ian was completely uninterested in my finding and all I could do was carefully place a plastic cup over it to prevent it moving freely about the room. It was grim. I moved the bed away from the wall too in case others were lurking about waiting to ambush us in the night.
Copyright 2003 Helen Fuller. All rights reserved.