A random Dinosaur sculpture on the drive down to the airport.

Car took all of 2 mins to drop off, shuttle to airport took less, queues at check in about 20 mins, it was hot, hot, hot.  The airport was all open air (other than a roof in various areas) so no air con!

When we finally got to check in with our 3 bags, one was over weight by 8lbs (about 3.5kgs) and one was very light so we were told to take stuff out of the heavy bag and put it in the light one.  Nothing like opening your suitcase in the middle of the check in area with all your intimates on top quickly trying to scramble to take stuff out because there are 20 people and 90 suitcases behind you all waiting to check in!

First attempt we had only taken out 5lbs so had to take some more stuff.  Finally got it sorted, got checked in and were on our way to security.  Only problem was Q had pinged his back again so was a bit slow with moving.  Me being the martyr I am insisted I take his backpack and he could take my carry on as it was much lighter.  His backpack weighed all of the 11kg you were allowed, bl00dy heavy it is fair to say.

Once through security still no air conditioning, still open plan, and getting hotter by the minute.  Decided to head to the restaurant surly that would be air conditioned, no it wasn’t.  *sigh*  Still it was lunch time now so we may as well eat.  Q had the most delectable (NOT) looking cheese nachos. All they were was a bunch of nachos on a plate with that bright orange cheese squirted on top.  Yes literally squirted, from a big pump bottle thing.  Ugh.  I played it safe with the grilled cheese sandwich, $7 thank you for two pieces of dry bread, bright yellow cheese slice in the middle, which was so plastic it didn’t even melt and took 20 minutes to prepare.  Still it was food.

Flight was uneventful.  Got ourselves and our luggage onto the shuttle and to the rental car location.  Had a compact car ordered just like the big island.  In the big island we had a Hyundai Elantra, on Ohau we were given a Kia Soul which looked like a box, was pretty small and even though the rental car company advertised it as being able to fit 3 pieces of luggage in the trunk and 5 passengers we could only fit one case, and the trunk was not a trunk but just a space in the back of the car so no security.

By now we were hot, tired and had enough, we thought about swapping out the car but the line for car pick up had grown to about 20 people and with each rental taking about 10-20 minutes there was no way.  So we headed to our new home in Kailua to regroup and for me to ring the rental car company to see what the cost would be to upgrade.

After unpacking and cooling down a little we decided to head back to the airport and swap our vehicle.  With no real boot this one was going to be a problem for us, as the thefts from cars over here are chronic and being able to shut things in a proper trunk where people couldn’t see them was going to be important to us.

Luckily no queue at the rental car company so it should have been quick right?  Wrong!  Explain the situation, then get taken to the other counter, explain the situation again, (oh because as well as being given this tiny car we had also been charged $80 for services and insurance we had said we didn’t want!), explain the situation a 2^nd and a 3^rd time to the same lady.  If only she would have shut up and actually listened to our problem!  Get told we have to return the car for them to reverse the extra charges so we need to go over there and return it.  Do that, and tell the man exactly what they had told us, he tells us he cant do that go back and see the manager.

Go back to the lady and say he cant do XYZ all he can do is ABC.  Oh ABC is all I need you to do.  Argh, temperatures boiling at this stage.  Then she tells us she doesn’t have any mid size cars in stock all they have is large and that will be an extra $38 a day.  Forget it.  Then she says I have this car, we ask to see it so we can check out the trunk.  She offers it to us for only $10 more a day.  It is a luxury car, the trunk is the size of a rugby field let along the length of the car, no fun to drive, going to guzzle gas and wont fit in the allotted parking spot at the house.  No thanks.

Oh, I have nothing for you then, only another Kia.  Really?  Somehow from the walk out to see the luxury car and the walk back into the office another compact car mysteriously appears.  This time a Chevrolet Aveo, a car with a trunk.  Okay it is a few years old, a bit battered and bruised but it doesn’t look like a cube and it has a trunk and it isn’t costing us extra.  We’ll take it thanks.

Phew…back home, navigating the freeway’s which even with the GPS can be a nightmare when you are driving under other freeways, because the stupid GPS thinks you are on the freeway above so starts giving you directions to go north instead of south.

*sigh* all in all a stressful day.  McDonalds for dinner, ugh, but couldn’t find anything else, are tired now and have to be up at 4am.

We headed of sometime after 9 to North Kohala and this time managed to find the Macadamia Nut Factory on the way.  Lots of samples, some with very odd flavours, such as SPAM flavoured Macadamia nuts,  neither of us were game to try those!  We bought some nuts and then headed on to look at the galleries of North Kohala.

There were lots of lovely art galleries with some amazing jewellery, wood products, I found lots I wanted that was either too big to take home, too expensive or my husband wouldn’t buy it for me.

Today wasn’t quite as hot as the last few days, also we were in a higher altitude so it was cooler.  If you can call high 20’s cooler.

We headed down to Waimea for lunch via the mountain road.  It was a complete contrast to the coastal route and was very much like driving along a country road at home, except that we were 3000ft above sea level.  From here we were able to look down towards our resort.

We went back to Village Burgers for our lunch, just because I wanted another one of their strawberry milkshakes, which are really yummy thick shakes made with fresh strawberries.  This time Q got one to so at least I didn’t have to share.

From here we headed back to the resort, the long way.  My fault, we weren’t using the GPS and I told Q to go right instead of left.  It was on purpose of course as this took us inland along the base of Mauna Kea, where it was very cloudy and very wet.  Had to get the car washed some way!

Lazy afternoon with a swim and then packing of bags.  Tomorrow we head to Oahu.

As soon as we hopped in and before we had even put our fins on we came across a turtle, in the shallows, probably only a couple of feet deep.  Today was a bit more of a workout than our previous visit as it was high tide.  Our earlier start did however mean a lot less people in the water (although by the time we got out a couple of hours later there was peak traffic in the water!).

Once again lots of pretty fish, Q managed to spot an octopus but he disappeared before he could even say “calamari”, and I saw the cutest little fish ever.  Luckily Quentin managed to get lots of photos of it.

After our swim we were starving and headed off to Patz Pies for Pizza.  It was new york style pizza, huge in size, lovely thin crust, really yummy.  Really interesting restaurant, quite young staff except for the owner who was a bit of a card.  He was on the phone to his mum while we were there, having quite a loud personal conversation about business.  Then he came to chat to us about the talk with his mum and how she had made eggplant parmigiana for her neighbour who had broken her wrist.  The place had a great vibe and at the tables they had a whole lot of trivial pursuit cards so Q and I sat there asking each other questions.  Says it all about our relationship, he chose Science and Nature, I choose Entertainment!

Then back to the resort (about an hour drive) for icecream.  I had kept looking at these mochi icecream ball thingys and decided I wanted to try them.  They were icecream inside a sticky rice coating.   The smallest portion was 3 balls, so I got white chocolate with raspberry, cantaloupe, and passionfruit.  It is fair to say the ice-cream inside was really yummy, I could give or take the coating.  Q had a dragon fruit sorbet which was really yummy.

Lazy afternoon by the pool.  This is the first opportunity I have had to sit and relax by the pool.  Probably because it is the first day there were a few clouds and a bit of a breeze so the sun wasn’t as burning hot as it has been!

Lazy night, with left over pizza for dinner.  *sigh* Life is good.

The further out we got the more surge there was so we were bobbing up and down quite a bit.  The plan was to go out past the point and as far around to the next beach as we could, however after about an hour of being pummelled by the surge he who must be obeyed decided it was time to head back.

 

I confess to being rather pleased as my passionfruit jam, raspberry jam, and orange juice from breakfast where thinking about coming back up!  All in all we were in the water for a couple of hours and saw quite a few fish and got a good work out.

Headed back home for a shower and then down to the local shops for lunch, I had hoped to go to the Japanese restaurant but unfortunately they only do dinner so we ended up at Just Tacos.  Q ordered calamari as the starter, it would have fed about 20 people, it was huge, we both then ordered chicken tacos.  They were just okay, the food was very brown, brown tacos, brown rice and brown refried beans, not very appetising looking and nothing like the tacos we have at home.  But then they were probably much more authentic.

I only ended up eating one, luckily I loved the strawberry lemonade and filled up on a couple of glasses of that and then had room for an ice cream.

We then had a couple of hours at home before we headed off for a drive of about 75 minutes to go to Mauna Kea for the star gazing programme.  The plan was just to go to the Visitor Information Station where they kick off with a talk and video about the programme around 6.30ish and then the telescopes are rolled out and you look at the Stars.  The visitors station is at about 9000ft, the summit at 13000.  To do the summit you need to have a 4wd or do a special tour and need to acclimatise yourself on the way up etc.  Too much fuss for us!

We can see Mauna Kea from the resort and see the top of the summit and the observatories up there, it is quite a spectacular looking mountain.  All was looking good until about 50 mins into our drive when clouds arrived, blackened and rain started.  As we got to the base of the mount and started the 6mile drive up to the visitor station it got foggier and foggier, not looking good for star gazing at all.  On the way up there was the most interesting looking flora, it was like everything had been petrified.

The temperature changed by about 35F between the resort and the visitor centre.  We had packed thermals etc as everything we read said it can get very cold up there.  It wasn’t actually too bad, but it was very very foggy, raining and not looking good for star gazing at all.  After about 15 mins we decided to head back down while there was still a bit of daylight so that we could see where we were going as it was a pretty narrow windy road.

On our drive back we looked back towards Mauna Kea and could see the thick layer of cloud covering the visitors station however the summit was bathed in sunshine.  Crazy.

Headed back to the Beach Club where we had dinner last night.  Whilst all the beaches are available for public access, residents of the resort have special privileges at the parking lot at the beach club.  Meaning we only needed to walk a few steps to get to the beach as opposed to a mile.

We were on our way just before 9am and hit the water about 9.30ish.  Luckily there weren’t too many people around.  The sun was shining pretty strong and the water relatively warm.  After a couple of hours snorkelling (no sighting of turtles, manta rays and more importantly sharks!) we headed back to shore to dry off a little before heading home for lunch.

Got chatting to some elderly  (okay your age mum, dad and Wendy) people who were from Utah.  They were asking us all about NZ.  Very friendly.  One of the men had on a very attractive all in blue jump suit.  It looked like a prison type of jump suit.  Hoping he wasn’t one of the two prisoners that escaped here a couple of days ago, he didn’t look like their pictures, so think we were safe!  Just not your usual beach attire!

After lunch on the lani I had a quick 40 winks and Quentin investigated where we would go for our afternoon snorkel.  My 40 winks was disturbed at about 35 by Quentin coming down the stairs from the bedroom and loudly announcing “I’ve lubed myself up”.  Now for those of you that don’t know Quentin you are probably thinking that something dodgy was about to happen in the bedroom, for those that know him it just meant he had covered himself in sunscreen and was ready to hit the water again.

So off we went to Kukio Bay which was about 15 miles away, and known for being the beach to see turtles.  All good, except for a couple of things – Tiger sharks like turtles, and sharks cant see well so how do they know if that is a turtle or my leg!  The beach is in a gated community but given all beaches are public you head to the gatehouse, get a car park pass (there is only 27 parking spots available, so I suppose they keep out the riff raff that way!), and then when you reach the next gate you need to buzz the guard house so they can let you in.  It is then about a 300m walk to the actual beach along a paved footpath.

It was pretty windy when we parked so we decided to walk and check things out before unloading all our stuff.  Once we got there Quentin gave the nod and we headed back to the car to get our stuff.  Exhausting

Just as we were getting into the water one of the girls on the beach let us know that there was a turtle directly in front of her, only about 5m off the beach.  So we quickly hoped in and there was actually 3 of them frolicking in the shallows.  Q was a bit bummed because he had the wrong camera lens, he had thought that if you saw turtles they would be a couple of hundred metres away not one!

After playing a bit with the turtles we headed out a bit further but the water was really dirty, my head was playing the theme music to jaws (sharks like turtles and murky water), so we headed back to the shallows a bit more playing with the turtles.  By playing we actually had to keep swimming out of their way, you are supposed to stay 15ft (5m) away from them but it was pretty hard when they kept swimming up to you!

Then time to head home for showers and a wee rest before heading out somewhere cheap and cheerful for dinner.  Too lazy to cook tonight!