Hawaii Island Tour
From 2007 World Tour in Oahu, United States on Sep 19 '07
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Today was a long day - starting with a continental breakfast at the hotel restaurant. Here you had to guard your breakfast from the flock of kamakaze sparrows that pearched on nearby ferns waiting for you to leave your seat for the buffet. Sitting at your chair, a sparrow would land on the chair opposite at our table, and just survey what we were eating. One cheeky fellow decided to take a hop closer and ended up with a quick flick of a napkin in his beak.
After this we checked out and met Carl for our personal tour around the Island. He came prepared for a full day of driving, with an esky packed with cold drinks and ice, and chips and nuts for us to much on when the munchies started. Joe and I were impressed with this little extra level of service.
Kamakaze Sparrows and Lazy Turtles
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First we headed out to the nearest post office to send home a package of items that we no longer needed. After a false start (the post office not having a box big enough for us to post the items in) - we went to the local pack-n-store, just to buy a box, then back to the Post Office again. This lopped 1hr off our island tour time which was disappointing.
We were then on the road and arrived soon after at Akaka falls. A short downhill 10min walk to the lookout gave us a great view of this waterfall. Back in the car we headed off again, Carl giving us some commentary on the local area, as well as a short story about his life and how he came to be in Hawaii. This was interesting, and broke up the ride time. 45mins later we arrived at the Akatsuka Orchid Garden. He I saw so many beautiful orchids, and took heaps of photos. I decided not to purchase the rare black orchid worth $20,000.
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It was then on to the National Volcano Park. We were running short on time, but Carl thought we might be able to see a couple of the sights in the park before having to leave. He said there was a fee for entry of $5 per person. On arrival, he was advised that commercial vehicles attract an additional $25 fee on top of this. He said he had never been charged this fee before, and made a complaint to the Ranger. We decided to give the park a miss as we were only going to have about 30mins and thought that paying $35 for this short time and seeing only one or two things was going to be a waste of time. Although disappointing, it meant that we were going to be able to drive all the way around the island, rather than having to backtrack the way we came. We were also going to be able to make another stop or two depending on the time we could make on the road.
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Another 1:30 brought us to the most impressive black sand beach. This phenomenum is caused by the breakdown of the black lave which has spilled into the ocean, then brought back in by the changing tide. It was almost eerie looking at the scene. Here we took photos of us and Carl, so that we had a record of our tour guide, the character that he was. He also pointed out that there is usually a turtle or two at the other end of the beach. Sure enough, making our way down there, we spotted two turtles sunning themselves and minding their own business. You cannot touch these animals as their shells are covered with the salmonella bacteria, which would have very bad consequences.
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The wheels started going around again and we made a quick stop at a place called the Painted Church, where a priest had painted a number of religious scenes on the walls of the church. This was our last stop before headind off to the Airport.
During the drive, Carl and I had an interesting conversation about teaching chess. He found it amazing that I was, what seemed, a decent player, and that I also teached chess. He was sorry that he had left the chess set that he normally carries in his briefcase at home. He said it was hard to get a good game on the Island as he did not know of anyone that played, and had decided to start teaching chess in order to have someone to play against in the future. I think he has now taken the idea of teaching chess at primary school away with the hope of starting something like that himself.
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Carl got us to the airport on time, where we boarded the plane back to Honolulu. This time we were lucky we didn't have three prisoners riding our flight like we did on the way over. There was something wierd about waiting to come over and having three prisoners walk past you in hand and leg chains and led onto the plane in the pre-boarding call. Lucky we were about 7 rows in front of them! The flight back provided no such entertainment and after our hotel transfer, had us back after sunset at the Hotel and given our room, in a different tower to where we were last time. We weren't sure what we could see out our window, but decided the ocean was out there somewhere in the continual black area, and once my eyes adjusted, I eventually made out the Diamond Head Crater which we hadn't seen before. I was hoping that the sun would be up in the morning before we left early for the airport, so that we could have a perfect view of this old crater.
We both felt exhausted after our 7 1/2hr drive and then the flight, that we bought a salad close by then headed up for an early night.
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