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After a short overnight in Waikiki, Si and I have ventured to Hawaii's Big Island and, to cut a long story short - I am in love. It's a tropical paradise, warm, pretty, and bursting at the seams with life. It also has some really, really cool things to do...
On the Kona (west) side we stayed in a very colonial-feeling hotel called the Manago in the village of Captain Cook (aptly named because that's where the big CC finally got killed by locals). The Manago serves the usual but ecclectic Hawaiian breakfast of sticky rice, eggs and sausages with your choice of ketchup, chilli sauce or soy sauce. To prepare your stomach for this you get a starter of Papaya fruit and a big fat mug of locally-produced and amazingly tasty Kona coffee.
On our second night in Kona we went along on one of the Manta-ray night dive/snorkel tours. You head out on a boat at around 5pm to a rocky bay north of the city, on the we saw whales (woo hoo! whales!) and a pod of spinner dolphins. Then just after the sun goes down you don a wetsuit, check your snorkel and then jump into black water of unknown depth and composition. Luckily you have a little raft to hold onto and the divers have big torches, so it doesn't stay pitch black for long. You swim into position over the divers sitting on the bottom and watch as the little tiny zooplankton get drawn towards the lights. Then... well... words can't do justice to what happens next. This video on our tour operator's website really says it all. If I could have spoken through my snorkel I would have been totally lost for words - being kissing distance from a 4-5 m long manta ray is something I will never forget.
We also nearly died that night because we took drowsyness-inducing sea sickness pills and, once the adrenaline had worn off, Si only just managed to drive our little 4x4 (nicknamed Scrappy Doo) home without falling asleep at the wheel. I was a model finacee and helped to keep him awake by passing out - in a really supportive way - the minute I hit the passenger seat.
The next day we watched the sun set from the top of a 4km high mountain. The old volcano of Mauna Kea the biggest mountain in the world, measured from it's base at the bottom of the Pacific it's more than twice as big as Everest. Stranded so high in the middle of the Pacific, the top of Mauna Kea has clear nights 235 days of the year and minimal air pollution to boot - making it a great place to see stars. Such a good place, in fact, that there are a whole host of super-high tech and expensive observatories up there. And a road up to them...
Scrappy Doo really came into his own as he climbed the half hour of dirt track to get to the top of Mauna Kea. We had the whole mountain top to ourselves, just me, Big Si and about 200 other tourists enjoying the total isolation. Despite the crowds we had a great view of what was an amazingly beautiful sunset. In fact the crowds made it better because you could tell by everyone's complete silence that we all felt the same. As the sun sank gently into a fluffy bed of clouds, the sky turned an brilliant shade of orange and pink rays struck out towards the encroaching night sky. Like, really, really pretty yo.
Afterwards we drove back down past Hawaiians shovelling snow into their trucks (to take back down home and make snowmen with apparently - I'm not joking) and then stopped half way down the mountain to check out the billions upon billions of stars (Dad, you'd love it, it's even clearer than Anglesey). I saw a massive golden shooting star; Si missed it completely - not that I'm rubbing it in.
- comments
Bethnsdad I was determined not to be remotely jealous of your trip. But I've failed.
Bethnsdad (Big Time.)
Lesley Me too! That all sounds amazing!
Mum Perkins What a wonderful description - it felt like I was there too. Not sure about the under water and big fish bit though!