Hawaii, the Big Island – Part 3

(Apologies for the delay in this post, but I’ve been very busy with a side project and a very sick old cat.)

Our first full day in Hawaii arrived terribly early when Allison – still on California time which is three hours later – announced that she was awake and bored at around 5:30am. We were able to convince her to let us sleep, sort of, a little longer. She amused herself by counting to 100 several times. Out loud, of course.

Eventually we got up and had a light breakfast of cereal, a touch of bacon, and hotel room coffee. Proper coffee, preferably of the Kona variety, was immediately placed on the list of things that needed to be purchased. We also needed sunblock (one large tube having been confiscated at SFO), more food, souvenirs and other critical supplies.

Breakfast and the obligatory relaxing took place on the lanai again, a location we were to grow very fond of. Eventually the in-laws decided to go do some of the shopping and then start looking at some of the area, while we went out to a nearby park.

My main reason for heading to this park was to find the geocache there and by doing so to drive a proverbial stake through the heart of my nagging compulsion to find a cache – any cache – so that I could check off that urgent requirement on my “must do” list.

Rather than just any cache though, this seemed like a genuinely appropriate one. The description noted that it was along a short half-mile trail leading through old Hawaiian petroglyphs, and that there was also a beach… Perfect! We loaded up and made the short drive (I think it was about 10 minutes) from Waikoloa to the Holoholokai beach park and Puako petroglyph preserve.

The trail started off among large piles of lava rock. The stuff was everywhere on this part of the island. After a few yards we were rewarded with some signs and a selection of petroglyph carvings, which were very interesting. The Hawaiian sea turtle drawing that one often sees on decals were clearly popular in this somewhat less portable form many centuries ago.

The trail quickly tuned to a twisty, dusty and narrow path winding between small trees and scrub brush. It was strikingly unlike any Hawaii I was familiar with, in fact it looked rather a lot like parts of Africa! We walked along, quickly starting to sweat from the heat, and occasionally stumbling as someone’s sandals again caught on one of the numerous lava rocks poking out of the trail.

Tropical Hawaii or African Bush Walk?

Before long, we came to the end of the main trail and to a large, smoother lava formation which was covered with petroglyphs. There was quite a lot of repetition in these, particularly the standard “human” stick figure, which made me suspect that each was added to represent a specific individual.

The GPS indicated that the geocache was off in the bush just a bit, and we found it quickly. Like almost every cache I found on the trip, the coordinates seemed to fall into the “advisory” category, meaning not very precise. Still, this one was close enough that I could easily spot the right location from where I zeroed.

Her Highness requests her limo.

After signing the logsheet and doing a little mental happy dance, we started heading back the way we had come. Allison started whining quite a lot. I picked up a large local thorn that pierced almost completely through my flipflops, and jabbed painfully into my foot every so often. After the second time I stopped to look, I finally spotted and extracted the evil thing. We got going again, and then Allison tripped over one of the ever-present lava rocks on the trail, fell and skinned her knee on another lava rock… Ouch! Out came the bandaids from my first aid kit, and we carried her most of the rest of the way back to the car from there.

After that we walked over to the small, shallow beach which was covered with small lave rocks and coral chunks, making a spectacular black and white beach. The water was blissfully warm, there were tide pools, and you could walk out maybe fifty feet into the water and never have it past your knees if you were careful. Very nice!

Holoholokai Beach

We poked around and relaxed there until late in the afternoon, when we returned to the condo for more relaxing. At one point I took off solo for about an hour (the only solo trip for me of the week I think) to find some local benchmarks and sights just a little north of us, and I also had my obligatory shave ice (really good) from a great little place at Kawaihae Bay.

That night we had dinner out at a sushi restaurant called Sansei. It was pricey but the food was good. It was Sunday night, and the place was packed even though they have quite a lot of tables. Having heathen landlubber tastebuds, I usually shy away from the fresh raw fish which, sadly, I just really don’t appreciate like I should. I’ll try most anything, and am familiar with a lot of Japanese dishes, but I was hoping for something a bit different and new.

After getting my foofie pear martini, I rolled the dice and opted for a spicy vegetarian pasta. That decision turned out to be a homerun, as it was tre fabu! The Chinese noodles were very good, the vegetables crisp and fresh, and the sauce was nicely spicy and very flavorful. Among the veggies, the small pieces of asparagus were mouth-wateringly good, the best I’ve ever had.

After dinner, it was time for still more lounging on the lanai. When the clouds weren’t in the way, we had clear views of the stars. They seemed to sparkle more here, in the clear Pacific sky. We enjoyed the comfortably warm night air, traded stories with Carrie’s folks about what we’d seen that day, sipped our local beers and generally hung out with the geckos until we were ready to crash for the night. Life was good here.