Today was another early start, we were on the road by 8am so we could hit todays snorkelling spot early, given it was an 80-90 minute drive.  Todays spot was a little further down than where we went yesterday.  Another popular spot known as two step.  So called because you walk across lava (luckily relatively smooth lava) sit on one of the two lava steps and then dive into the water, there is no other way to get in.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As the photos show it was pretty congested getting in even at 9.30 in the morning!  Todays spot was the coolest water we have experienced, not freezing but certainly a bit of a “argh” as you jumped in.  Key reason being it was one of the deepest spots we have been to so far.  There was lots of fish, some amazing coral and he who needs to be kept happy was.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After a couple of hours we got out of the water (the same way you get in) and headed to the National Park which was right next door – Pu’uhonua o Honaunau National Park.  It is a spot of national significance and also known as the Place of Refuge.  Built in the 1500’s there was a temple that commoners that had committed kabu (taboo) by doing something such as looking at someone in the royal family, could swim to to seek refuge.  Here they would be absolved by the priests and be able to live a normal life.  Well as normal as commoners could!  Only thing was they had to survive the swim, which wasn’t that easy, the channel to the refuge was shark invested with treacherous currents.  Really if you survived the swim you had every right to be forgiven!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From here we headed back towards our resort, stopping for lunch on the way.  Funnily enough as we were driving down to Two Step this morning what should I see on the way but Annies Burgers, the place we had been looking for yesterday.  What made this rather amusing (for want of a better word) is that it was right next to the Gelato shop that I had pointed out yesterday saying that I had heard they did really good Gelato!  They do because we stopped for one after we had a burger at Annies, which funnily enough was right next store!

Then home for a swim in the pool.  We couldn’t believe it, today we had to share with about 6 other people, it is the first time we have really seen others at “our” pool.  Still it didn’t take long for them to get out once we had gotten in.  Quentin thinks they may have needed to get their sunglasses so as not to be blinded by his white body!

After a little rest we took a walk around the Fairways complex given we had yet to do so and by 6pm it was starting to cool down.  If you can call 25ish cool!  On the walk it looked like there was going to be a stunning sunset so we got in the car and headed towards the access to the beach that we thought would give us the best views.  What we didn’t realise was it was about a mile walk from the car park to the beach and by the time we got there the sun had gone down!  Talk about false advertising, how can you say shoreline access and not actually tell you you have to walk for 20 minutes to get there.  Thank goodness we didn’t do it with all our dive gear.  Carole would not have been happy.  :-(

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In saying that the walk was very interesting as it was through a historical park that had lava tubes, fish ponds etc and was a very pretty walk.

 

We had a bit of a slow start to our day today.  After the Manta Ray swim last night we were late to bed so while we were still up before 7am we weren’t fast and hadn’t decided where we were going to go for today’s swim.

Quentin decided on Kahalu’u Beach Park which was about 50 minutes south.  Our snorkelling book told us to get there early in the morning or late in the afternoon as it is a very popular spot.  Popular because it has quite shallow access, so is really easy for all levels of snorkelling.

When we got there around 10.45am we had to wait a couple of minutes for a park, and once we got one headed to the beach.  There was people snorkelling everywhere, a few people on paddle boards, it was like peak hour traffic!

Once we got ourselves ready we hit the water, gingerly picking our way between all the bodies.  As much as it was busy it was actually a great spot for seeing lots of different types of fish, lots of lovely colourful ones even another turtle, although this one didn’t want to stay and play.

Most of the people stayed in closer to shore so we headed a little further out, which wasn’t so busy.  I did a fabulous job of pointing out all the interesting things to Quentin, funny little fish, colourful fish, interesting sea urchins, Christmas Tree worms.  He just wouldn’t have got by with out me!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As we were heading back in we came across one of the beach lifeguards, she was paddling around on her board and warning people that there was a fish that was biting in a certain area, luckily we didn’t come across that fish.

From there we decided we would head for lunch, only problem was we couldn’t find where we were going on the GPS.  Stupid GPS requires you to put in the city/town that it is in, and none of the ones I used from my Lonely Planet guide so we gave up and headed to Ultimate Burgers which we knew we could find, and I also knew had good write ups.  The burgers were nice, as were the chips, I had their home made lemonade which was really yummy but caused my husband to pull a most unattractive face when he tried it, must have been too sour for him!

On the drive we came across a store called Donkey’s Balls which I had read about, so mandatory stop.  They make all these yummy chocolate covered macadamia’s in ball from.  Apparently the story is when the macadamias are ripe they fall of the trees, wild boars run to the orchards to eat the nuts and the farmers chase them off yelling “if I catch you your balls are mine”.  When the farmer wins the harvest is usually followed by a barbie with …you guessed it….boars balls.  Luckily the balls we got were much nicer, one lot were macadamias covered with white and milk chocolate with an orange flavour, yummy, and the others were milk chocolate with toffee bits, also yummy.  Mmm…we may be passing that store again tomorrow!

Home and a little rest before we headed off for the 1.4 mile walk around the petroglyph trail that is here within the resort.  Even though we didn’t go until after 5pm it was still very hot on the walk!  It was just up the road from where we are staying at Beach Park.  After the walk we headed down to the beach to have a look and came across all these cats.  There are quite a lot of feral cats around the place, in fact over a dozen lying on the warm concrete on the walk up to the beach.  They aren’t aggressive at all, and seem in very good condition but we have stopped ourselves from patting them no matter how lovely they look.  Oh and if you are wondering Sunny is doing fine at her hotel and Maureen tells me she is a real character and they love her to bits.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A lovely dinner of steak and kale chips.  I had got some kale at the farmers market on Saturday as I had heard that kale chips were really good for you and very yummy.  They were very tasty.  Then dessert was donkey balls.

On our drive along the highway there are signs that tell you to be careful of the donkeys, so far we are yet to see any donkey’s but have seen plenty of wild goats along the road side, so not sure if they are just confused about what a donkey looks like or what!

 

Wow what a day, we were on the road by 9am to ensure we got one of the 27 car park passes for the beach where we had seen the turtles last week.  We were the first there so no worries about getting a pass.  Hopped in the water and swam and swam and swam and no turtles.  The water was a little clearer, there was plenty of other fish and Q had the right lens on his camera but no turtles.

As we headed back closer into shore there the turtles were, in the same spot as previously.  We spent quite a bit of time swimming around with them, they were just gorgeous.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By they time we were ready to go (about 11.30ish) the park was pretty well full.  It is a lovely wee beach area, a very shallow area that is perfect for family and kids, then a little walk along and there is a bit of a grassy area with trees for shade and then the beach that we enter the water at, it is a little deeper and no so many rocks.  It backs on to another resort but you see hardly anyone around.

Just like the resort that we are staying at, it is massive but you really don’t see anyone.  When we got back from the beach we hopped into the pool for a swim and we were it, no one else around.

After a couple of hours relaxing it was time to head back towards Kailua Kona to meet at Jacks Diving Locker for our Manta Ray dive.  We were really lucky, they have two boats that go out, one for divers and one for snorkelers, since there was only two divers we the snorkelers got to take the bigger boat out.  Even luckier still there was only 9 snorkelers (they can take up to about 20), so plenty of room, perfect.

The crew on the boat were great, even if they only looked like there were 12!  One; Jeremy was a young surfer dude, long blonde hair, knitted hat, shorts and tank, and looked like he was still at school , the other Peter was also quite young but both really really nice and then there was our Capt.

We left around 5.30ish to head to the dive site and on our way Jeremy thought he saw dolphins coming out of the water so we headed for a look.  It wasn’t dolphins it was one of those guys on those jet pack water things, so funny to watch.  The boat trip out was great, there was a wee ledge at the front to sit on and the views were great, it was also so warm.  Q and I also sat here when we headed home.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Beautiful sunset and then we arrived at the Manta Ray site with a million other boats, it is a very very popular activity!  Waiting until it was dark we saw a couple of Manta’s near the surface so it was looking promising.

Manta Rays feed on plankton and plankton is attracted to light so the premise is if there is enough light you will get plankton and it follows that you will also get Manta Rays (of course this doesn’t always work).  The light is achieved by divers that are on the bottom of the ocean (it is only about 10 meters) with strong lights looking up, and then all the snorkelers are on the top with lights looking down.  In most cases the lights are attached to a surf or paddle board and then the snorkelers just gather around the board and use that as their guide.

Within seconds of us getting into the water we had a manta ray doing somersaults so close that we could have reached out and touched it, we are talking about 10cms (4 inches) from us.  It was amazing.

As it got darker there was probably about 10 or more rays in the water, some small, some absolutely huge, there was also about a million snorkelers it he water, okay, okay, another exaggeration, but it was a madhouse, snorkelers everywhere, paddleboards everywhere, fins in your back, front and sides as everyone was floating around.  Crazy.  But then a manta ray would come close and all that was forgotten.

Jeremy and Peter had joined our two paddle boards together so we were travelling as one pack rather than two, how they managed to keep us all together was amazing, let alone following the rays and lights.  After a little while most of the others in the group decided they had had enough and went in, leaving just Q, me and Stefan from Sweden along with our guide Jeremy.  It was much easier once we got rid of the extra dead weight and we stayed in until we were told to get out!  The water was incredibly warm even though it was dark.  Just amazing.

Another once in a lifetime experience.  How lucky are we.  J

Today was going to be a tiki tour day seeing some of the historical sights in Northern Kohala.  We started out at Pu’ukohola Heiau which is a temple built in 1791 known as the Temple on the Hill of the Whale. Today the basic rock structure still stands and it is huge at 224ft by 100ft with walls up to 20ft.  It is amazing to think that these walls were built so long ago and still standing, especially when you read that they are not built with any mortar or anything.

This temple was built by Kamehameha who had dreamt that one day he would rule all of the Hawaiian Islands.  By 1791 he ruled most of them but not the Big Island.  So built the temple, invited his cousin (who he was fighting for ownership of the island) to come see it and then slaughtered him on the beach!  So yes, he did get control.

It was only a 1km walk around the whole thing, really hot, but really interesting.  They have this great thing at the national parks where they have QR codes that you can scan with your smartphone and you get a guided audio tour of the whole park.  Unfortunately we have been unable to use it as we just don’t have the data plan on our phone, so we have done the old fashioned way of reading the brochures and my Lonely Planet book!

From here I discovered we were a short stop away from the Macadamia Nut Factory, not part of our scheduled itinerary but hey, we were in the area.  Seems like the GPS had a different idea (or maybe it was just me miss-reading it!) but somehow we didn’t manage to find it.  So headed back on to the Highway for the drive to Pololu Valley.

Don’t panic, as we were driving we passed the street for the Macadamia Nut Factory so will be heading back there on another day.  Phew…that could have ruined the whole holiday

We passed via various historical spots on the way, Kamehameha’s birth place etc, didn’t stop, it was too hot!  Also drove through a lovely wee town called Hawi (pronounced Ha vee), it has a small population of 1000 and lots of little galleries and cafes, we were going to stop here for lunch after walking into Pololu Valley.

We had been told Pololu Valley was a beautiful walk and much easier than Waipi’o Valley and just as lovely.  Made easier by having several switchbacks rather than the straight up Waipi’o.  Tell you what, if that was easy I hate to think how hard Waipi’o is!  We just about died, no exaggeration, honestly.

 

 

 

Probably best not done in the heat of the day, especially given it was one of the hottest days, very little shelter and did I mention hot.  As far as the switchbacks I am not sure that 3 counts as several.  As we were going down, down, down I kept suggesting to Quentin that he just carry on down and take the pictures and I would wait and see them.  No it will be great, it will be easy he kept saying.  How wrong was he!

 

 

 

 

Yes the valley was stunning, yes there was a lovely wee black sand beach at the end, yes there was these cool piles of rocks that people had built to show they had been there, was it easy NO, was it worth it – the jury is still out.

Even going down was pretty tough as while it is a track it is not a man made one, more a natural one with tree roots, boulders and a steep cliff edge.  I insisted when we got there that we also built our own rock stack, which I am sure you will agree is pretty spectacular!

As I have said before what goes down must go up and so we starting the walk back.  It was HELL, it was so hot, did I mention there was no shade (well very little), the only breeze was a hot one, and it was very very steep.  Even steeper than the Kilauea Iki trail we did at Volcano.  It was not fun.  By the time we got to the top we were so hot and sweaty that going anywhere for lunch was out of the question.  We would have driven people out of the café!  So we headed back home and had a cool refreshing shower, made pancakes, bacon and banana and had a wee rest.

After our rest we headed down to Kailua Kona (the main town area on this coast) and hit the cool air conditioned shops for a bit.

A day of two extremes!