We slept in until 3:30 am this morning. Over a pot of coffee, we planned our day. The debate was whether to go kayaking and snorkeling by Captain Cook’s monument or visit the historic refuge national park south. The park also had snorkeling nearby and it won the debate. We left quite early and planned to explore Hawaii with our extra time. Explore we did.
We drove over a one-lane road for many miles and found ourselves in a residential neighborhood, feeling a little uncomfortable. There was clearly water nearby so we drove around until we found a beautiful spot and pulled off the road. The bay was amazing. We looked at some tide pools by the road where bright yellow fish were hanging out. As we tried to navigate our way out of the neighborhood, we found ourselves at a boat launch area with just a few locals. It was about 7:00 a.m. One resident pointed for us to go left. We did on a whim and found another ocean access area. Looking across the bay, we saw a white monolith and realized that we had accidentally found the location of one of the kayak launch areas with access to the Captain Cook monument.
Since we had decided at the condo to go to the park instead of kayaking, Mike had brought his camera. Leaving it in the car unattended was not an option so we again tried to navigate out of the residential area and back to the park. We missed the park but eventually found our way there. We drove past a number of coffee plantations but they were rather unremarkable from the road. Don’t get me wrong- the trees, flowers and other foliage around them were beautiful, but there is beautiful foliage in front of the most run-down house here.
We thought the park had just opened when we got there but we later discovered that it did not open until later. We were some of the first people there. In fact, the ranger was not there yet to accept the $5 fee. We asked a maintenance ranger and he said it was free until the other ranger appeared around 8:30. Score. The park was the refuge location for people who broke strict social rules in ancient Hawaii and would have otherwise been killed. The history and the restored structures were interesting. We found ourselves walking on a lava rock beach, which is really large lava rocks that abruptly end with the water. Then…we saw a turtle- a large Green Sea Turtle. It must have been breakfast time because he was busy munching away at something on rocks in a shallow tide pool. About 1″ of his shell was sticking out of the water. He was about 2′ long and seemed happy to ignore us and eat. We had seen the signs not to harass the turtles, so we kept a respectable distance but we did get a lot of photos of him. Then we saw his buddy lazily swimming in a connected, deeper tide pool a ways out. It was awesome! We also saw a bunch of tiny, silver fish that seemed to bounce along the top of the water in a school.
It was also getting hot, in the mid 70’s with moderately high humidity. And we had water but no food. So what do the Smiths do in such a situation? We go for a hike that we found along the coastline, which was in the direct sun. We found few patches of shade. The view was amazing the entire time. Each bend showed us a different bay or shelter with the water crashing against the rocks. Mike found some lava rocks to dream about cleaning and climbing. There was a gated lava cave that we couldn’t enter. And we passed by two ancient villages that I think were part of the refuge fort. Only lava rock walls and some foundations remained. It was just under a 2 mile hike but we were a little spent when we reached the car.
We decided to find lunch (because it was lunchtime for our bellies though not yet on Hawaiian time) and continue exploring the southern coast. Of course we didn’t bring one of the many tour books that are at the condo. We passed a bunch of restaurants because we weren’t ready to stop yet. Mistake #1. When I started getting really hungry, we pulled into one beach, Hookena Beach, which was pretty and had a lot of campers. There was a cart there with a nice lady who sold food but she was just setting up. We decided to move on and come back after lunch. Mistake #2. There were no more restaurants. We didn’t know it but we were driving along the southern end of Mauna Loa, the active volcano and there was little around except windy roads and lava rock. We did stop at another beach, in hopes of finding food, Miloli’i, but it was sketchy. The road was a terrible steep one lane road that bent it’s way down a hillside. At the bottom were rundown houses and cars. Our bright blue Ford Focus looked like a luxury car. (Also on this trip, we learned there are many bright blue Ford Focuses on Hawaii and they’re likely all rental cars. Nothing like sticking out in a crowd.) We turned around just before the beach and went back towards Kona.
By this time, I was about to eat my arm, my stomach felt like I hadn’t eaten in days, and I was on high cranky mode. I tried to be quiet- so did Mike. We eventual found a little deli that served less than good sandwiches but we wolfed down two and a smoothie. When we returned home, we took a long nap. Now we are debating whether to go to the Kona Brewery at 5:00 for live music, an acoustic guitarist, or whether to stay at the condo and take advantage of the salt water pool.
Wildlife Report
The mini dove bird on our lanai is staring at us. Oh, and we have seen two red cardinals and lots of tiny little yellow birds and birds that we call Crabbies. We’ve also seen quite a few mongoose. A couple played Chicken with the car and won- Mike swerved. We heard a couple bicker yesterday when we were at the brew pub. It was great.