Mauna Kea - Big Island:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2244956&l=8dd3c&id=61205739
Maui:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2244965&l=c5332&id=61205739
O’ahu – Hawaii – Monday July 7th – Thursday July 10th
A 7 hour flight from London to Chicago in the body, we boarded our separate flights (United & American) to Honolulu, with Carly arriving a full 3 hours or so before me. Always wonderful to hear the word “domestic flight”, but this being the US, the 10 hour trans-Pacific flight, while still domestic, is equivalent of a London – Delhi flight… quite a distance. But by calling it “domestic” means that neither airline gives you food or drink for free. So after trying to hold on for 8 hours I eventually gave way and parted with $10 for an outrageously overpriced cheese and ham sarnie.
Landing in Honolulu, I was fairly glad that I didn’t have to go back through international arrivals, passport control, visa waiver programme malarkey which I did in Chicago. Actually, think I forgot to mention… On that point, I got interviewed twice in Chicago by two different customs officers who were adamant that my previous 3 month stayu a year ago was illegal because, afterall, why would anyone be in the States for 3 months and not be working? After an hour of pleading that I was actually telling them the truth, and the fact that Trek America do actually do 64 day tours, and that it is possible that I might have wanted to go and explore Hawaii afterwards did constitute an 88 day holiday – that being 2 days shorter than VWP limit…
Anyway, in the end I just said I had brothers in Columbia and an Uncle in Mexico, and if they didn’t let me in I’d give them a call. Quicker than you could say Tijuana, I had my backpack on my back and was through Chicago.
Anyway, back to Hawaii. I easily get distracted.
Currently writing this in Kahalui airport in Maui, its 8.20pm, so is what, 7.20am back home. And by my calculations (which are probably wrong) 6.20pm + 24 hours in Kiritimati where we’re headed tomorrow, flight being well and all…
But anyway, back to Hawaii, what have we done?
Well, with the 2 weeks worth of experience of using “the BUS” last time in Honolulu and Waikiki it was a quick transition from the airport to downtown, and a night in Waikiki. After realising it was still like Benidorm on speed, a burger in BK, some beach time and actually making it out to the USS Arizona at Pearl HarboUr it was definitely time to get away to the North Shore for some real Hawaii time… So off we went on the 52, and three hours later, after touring every neighbourhood north of Waikiki we got to Waimea Bay and checked into Backpackers. Being this time, in the house to the rear of the building with a couple of Australia who had a son sponsored by Quicksilver living in Hawaii, quite a surfer by the sounds of it.
The next day, Carly began in a foul mood because I had a “surprise” lined up, which by all intents and purposes might as well have been a sky dive so she was visibly scared. Anyway, I dragged her along to Dillingham Airfield (well we got a lift from Georgia, who is married to the chap who runs the gliding company, and incidentally is from Watford and went to Lady Bankes primary school where Carly is teaching in September – minuscule world!), which 8 months earlier I had passed wishing I could have done a glider flight! Carly quickly worked out what it was, and actually, despite pretty scared jumped in and gave it a her all. After flying the plane herself and doing 23 loop the loops I realised that actually she was better suited to being a pilot than a teacher and the glider company offered a full time role as a pilot. I haven’t seen her since, I think she’s still there.
After spending the rest of the day up at the north shore we took ourselves back down to Waikiki ready for the early morning flight to the Big Island…
BIG ISLAND – THURSDAY July 10th to Saturday July 12th
After arriving at the Big Island, picking up the Jeep, and visiting WALMART for some much needed supplies we ventured down to South Point, this time 4 x 4 equipped this time so some serious off-roading was accomplished. I checked to see if my grafitti had washed off….
…. It had, and so on went some new grafitti …
Instead of camping as I had in November, I booked us into the weirdest hostel in Hawaii. Well not that it was really all that weird, just a little strange, but I loved it. Sat in the rainforest (oh yes, one of those 21 climates that the Big Island has IS the rainforest) in Volcano Village (Hawaii Volcano’s National Park) right next to a Japanese arts centre and at an altitude of about 3500 ft, so higher than the highest point in England. Got down to being a little chilly at night. The Japanese women who seemed to own, or help out at the Holo Holo (as it was called) had some pretty good English considering that she was Japanese, but seemed to get really confused when she couldn’t find our reservation. We had to pretty much point out that there looked to be a free room to her right with about 8 beds in – “could we possibly take that one”? Within a jiffy we had our gear out and spent the rest of the day exploring the National Park.
Later on, after a trip to the Lava Rock CafÈ, we met a chap and his wife from Maine, and had a long chit chat in the Kitchen about various things. By the end we had his e-mail in case we were ever in Maine. Handy!
Fell asleep that night, stars out, in a tiny little village, 3500 feet up in the Volcano’s National Park, with nothing but the faint sound of breeze outside, and 800 square miles of wilderness all around. Oh and 8 beds all to ourselves, as no one else was in town!
The next day we made out way around to Hilo, tried to make friends with a handful of vicious mosquitoes who seemed more interested in our legs than the smoothies we were drinking in this smoothie cafÈ’s tropical garden … and with itchy legs made our way up, in plenty of time, to Mauna Kea for that nights sunset. The jeep let us actually get to the top this time, where previously ye olds Dodge could only get you half way. So finally managed to stand a top the highest peak in the Pacific. Mauna Loa, and Mauna Kea done now. Though Loa was slightly harder than the DRIVE up Kea!
After watching the sunset, we made our way back down to the star gazing programme for an hour or so (where astronomers from the University of Hawai’i bring out huge telescopes) and got chatting to a Physics dude. Who, believe me, was definitely a Physics dude. After asking a question to which I was to receive a 16 minute answer I quickly realised that I shouldn’t have bothered. Though he did have one cracking answer to a question I had about the megawattage of his green laser. After commenting that mine was 25 mW, he said that before he bought his he had gone into the “medical literature” and read a load of papers on how strong a laser can be before it might hurt some of his students eyes… In one particular case a guy, who was to have his eyes removed due to cancer, was asked if he would allow some researchers to shine a laser in his eyes before they were removed just to see what damage they would do… after he said “sure thing, give me a blast” the researchers quickly destroyed anything that was left of his retina and deemed that anything over a 28 mW laser was so destructive that not even a blink (100ms) would save your eye from a laster that strong. Interesting.
After eventually finding our way to Hono’kaa and our bed for the night I fell asleep quicker than you could say Honolulu.
MAUI - - Saturday July 12th to Tuesday July 15th
Just realised that we’re about to take off and I’ve been writing this for the last hour, and the cabin crew lass keeps telling me to switch this off, so maybe I’ll get around to saying a little about Maui, like the Hana Highway, Holo crater, and the Kula View B&B at some point soon…
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