Last Thursday evening, July 10th, we flew from Kauai to the Big Island. We arrived after the sunset, but fortunately Waikoloa is easy to find from the Kona airport, and we checked into the Marriott to spend the next four days here! We began mapping out what we wanted to accomplish over the next four days thanks to the book we received from Aunt Margie and Uncle Carl, “Hawaii - The Big Island Revealed.”
Friday morning, we woke up early as usual, and headed out on the road to do some sightseeing. We focused on the Kohala coast area of the Big Island by first crossing over the most recent lava flows (1800’s) and stopping in Waimea for a few local pineapple and mango soft drinks. From there, we cruised north on the Kohala Mountain Road to Hawi and stopped and bought a few servings of ice cream at Tropical Dreams on our way over to the Pololu Lookout. Absolutely incredible views, and we took some great snapshots. We came back along the coast and stopped off at Hapuna Beach and enjoyed the beautiful beach and waves. We ended the day at the resort spending time reading by the pool.
On Saturday, we drove down to Kona in the morning to meet up with Honu Sports who would be taking us Scuba Diving. Lisa, the owner/operator, apparently had a new dive master (who was really nice and informative) that she didn’t care for, so it made for an interested boat ride out and back into the harbor. While at sea, we first dove the Golden Arches which are some remnants of some lava tubes and then finished at Crescent Bay (click here for video). Our maximum depth was 60′, but the main coral and lava formations were quite shallow at 20′-30′, so we ended up with long dive times of 60 minutes at each site. Fortunately and unfortunately, Honu Sports has a small dive boat which makes it nice while diving (there were only two other divers on the boat), but tends to rock and roll in the waves considerably while we are at the surface. Because of the this, Staci practically turned green and most likely will never go on a boat dive with me ever again. After 10 minutes back on shore, she was back to normal (thank goodness!). That afternoon, we drove around Kona and found the Kona Temple and walked around the grounds, and then headed back to the resort for the afternoon.
On Sunday, we took the circle island tour all in one day! Our main reason was to see the volcano exactly on the other side of the island. We left bright and early as we had numerous things to see in the morning. We took the north route out of Waikola, and thanks to our guidebook, we took a few scenic routes on “Old Mamalahoa Hwy, first right outside of Waimea, and second right above Hilo. The second adventure provided again incredible views and beautiful country, along with the best smoothies in the world at “What’s Shakin’” (the key ingredient, frozen bananas replacing ice…). Also along the way we saw numerous waterfalls, the main being the incredible 420 foot Akaka Falls, also with Rainbow Falls, Boiling Pots, and Pe’epe’e Falls (no Zane, it’s not pronounced pee-pee, but rather PEH-EH PEH-EH, so wipe that smirk off your face!). At this point, we headed into Volcanoes National Park, we did not see the actual lava flow that runs into the ocean, as that was outside the park and not open for the public to access until late afternoon, so we stuck to the inside of the park where we experienced the latest events that are occurring in the Halema’uma’u Crater. Back in March and April of this year, a new vent has formed with plenty of gas pluming out of the crater. Quite the site. Staci’s favorite in the park was cruising through Thurstons lava tube under ground. The rest of the afternoon we cruised around the south end of the island, surviving a torrential downpour and checking out a black sand beach.
On Monday, we just sat and relaxed all day long at the pool and beach at the Marriott. Luckily we extended our stay through 6pm at the resort, as our flight back to reality wasn’t until 9:30pm that night.
All in all, a fantastic honeymoon vacation! We both think the helicopter tour topped everything, but the views that we experienced, the great diving, and the zip line tour were close behind.
0 comments:
Post a Comment