Holiday within the holiday: Day 2

Day 2 featured a special trip.

One of Heather's old college friends is a pretty pretty smart guy, and works at the observatories up on top of Mauna Kea. "Normal" visitors can drive to the top and go inside the viewing gallery but with our special access pass (no actual pass was given) we got a mini tour. This really was right up there with the coolest things I've ever seen & done.

While packing my bag the night before we left for this mini island trip I did a little reading on where we were headed and was somewhat shocked to discover how high we were headed, around 14,000 feet!
A quick temperature check revealed it to be around 3 degrees but with a low wind, hopefully that would be the same when we got there as I had only really packed light clothing.
Indeed, Mauna Kea is technically the highest point on earth if measured from its undersea beginnings. I put it in perspective for myself by discovering the amount of ascent we covered that day would be over three times that of Ben Nevis. The fact we drove all but the last 200m doesn't make it any less cool, ha ha.

The 100 mile drive from our hotel was the opposite from the day before, both in direction and in scenery. A lot of it reminded me of Scotland, with a lot of greenery and highland-type roads.

We drove our hire car on the regular surfaced road up to the visitor centre around 9000ft where we met our "guide" Mark and spent 20 minutes there to acclimatise to the height. He then drove us up to the top in his truck. Around 50% of this part is on a very loose gravel road complete with scare stories of tourists driving over the edge when their brakes fail on the way down after they overuse them and the lack of oxygen can't cool them down enough!

And then inside on our special tour!

A lot of the technical stuff went over our heads but seeing the largest observable telescope in the world is gonna be impressive no matter what you learn or already know.

Cue jokes of that's not a camera, THIS is a camera.

We learned about the plans to build another mirrored lens three times larger than this one and why the temperature inside the telescope had to be kept at zero, so much for warming up inside!

We walked back inside and happened upon them cleaning one of the mirrors.
Threat level AMBER indicated not to go in, ha ha.

About 200m on a trail path to the side of the observatory is the actual high point so if course we couldn't go all the way up and not walk that.

In the end I felt okay at altitude (40% less oxygen apparently) not even out of breath just a little sore headedness, but this could have been hunger and before heading down we both had what at the time tasted like the best food EVER as we enjoyed a Cup Noodle at the visitor centre.

The scenery on the way down was pretty desolate, lots of volcanic rock by the roadside.

Kapu signs signify sacred land

We got back to Kona late afternoon and spent a little time walking along the beachfront promenade. It's a little touristy of course, but in a really nice old-style way.

THE Ironman

Hawaii's first church

Hawaii style shopping centre

Sunset then food before collapsing back at our hotel after 10pm. Apart from borrowing a cool box, we didn't get to use any of the facilities at what looked to be a really nice resort!

Holiday within the holiday: Day 1

Heather and I did a bit of island hopping. We spent two days in Kona on the Big Island and one day  in Honolulu on the island of Oahu. The flights are only about 35 minutes and I got to see the slightly funny departure gates at Lihue airport, where the weather is so good that you are basically sitting outside under a roof.

The good news was after we got our hire car I got to drive, for the first time in ages! The bad news was we covered nearly 400 miles in the two days!
It was barely 10am and because we couldn't check into our hotel until 4pm we set off straight away for one of the three main places we had planned for the short visit.

The City of Refuge was a sacred place where ancient Hawaiians could be absolved of crimes... if they could make it there. The weather was scorching but the restored site was pretty impressive.

A quick stop for food at a superb roadside BBQ place, thank goodness in this day and age for the phone maps and Yelp app. I don't know how you'd find places like that without a smartphone as they are not very visible from the road and at this point on the island there really wasn't much choice.
The next 80-odd miles round the south of the island had even less! One small town and a lot of volcanic rock.

The main tourist stop for today was the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, a World Heritage Site and sight of the world's most active volcano.

As you enter the park then drive round towards the main visitor centre you can see the hot steam just coming up from random areas alongside the road, but not too close to the road! It whets your appetite for what is to come.

Even though the weather had changed and was now a little cloudy and damp the site that greets you as you walk round the corner at the visitor centre was still pretty awesome.

You get to learn interesting snippets of Hawaiian history such as the Hawaiian volcanoes were considered sacred by the Hawiian people and the Halemaumau Crater pictured served as the site of Pele, goddess of fire, lightning, wind, and volcanoes.

Unfortunately we couldn't stay until the sun had set in order to see any glowing lava and the road further round was closed. There were also warnings to be careful about leaving your windows open especially if it gets windy as the sulphur smells pretty bad and there can be a lot of acid rain.

The landscape was real barren as you'd expect.

But then after heading slightly further around the park drive you hit a more tropical area where you get access to the walk through the Thurston Lava Tube.

Out with the smartphone on the 100 mile drive back to find some food and then we finally checked in around 9.30pm, shattered.

A taste of Hawaii

Saturday we were given some tickets from Heather's mum for the Polynesian festival that was going on that weekend.

It was interesting to watch and you can't really go to Hawaii and not see a bit of this, that's like going to Scotland and not seeing some men in kilts with bagpipes. So it is kind of touristy and you don't really see it unless it's put on for you.

The little kids were funny as they tried to keep in sync with the adults.

We walked along the beachfront in front of the Marriot hotel and they had a funny sign which tries to sum up island life.

Coming from New York you especially notice that the speed of life here is generally much slower. As a tourist this is fine and normal but it is quite noticeable while waiting for any food to arrive in your hand.
As always, there's also the lack of blasting car horns but I think that's a reasonably unique (problem) to Manhattan.
Another thing was getting reacquainted with store and restaurant closing times. You quickly get used to places being open past 6pm or 7pm and not being closed on a Sunday or Monday!

One feature I forgot to mention was that the whole island is overrun with chickens.
Yup, apparently they have been out and about in the wild for so long now that it's illegal to kill them. The hens, cocks and cute little chicks appear everywhere!! Cock-a-doodle-doo-ing in the morning and popping up roadside, beachside, shop-side and even in the bushes during hikes.

NYC to Hawaii

May 23rd we left for Hawaii via Chicago then LA to Lihue.

Some pretty cool views from the airplane. Unfortunately American Airlines doesn't have tv's in the back of the seats so I have no idea where we were at these points and more importantly there was no movie choice etc AND no free food whatsoever. Kind of surprising especially on the way home when the flights are over 5 hours.

We picked up Steve from the Jessiman condo (see below for the nice view from their balcony), he'd arrived a few days before Anne & Murdo for whatever reason!

This was our first proper day there so we just did a little drive up the coast. I hadn't studied Kauai in any way beforehand so everything was a surprise and it was indeed a surprise to see the map afterwards to find we'd driven right up the east coast and halfway along the north shore and back already.

Probably the feature you notice most is the large and very green mountains which you can see from anywhere on the island.

Our guide (Heather) pointed out the Taro fields. Kinda like a potato I think, although I only got to try the Taro crisps during this trip.

We stopped off at Hanalei pier. We'd be back here later on the holiday. It was a bay with a reef offshore so the water was a little shallower and the water was so much calmer than elsewhere. Plus the pier was ripe for jumping off into the water.

The garden island indeed.

Another PB!

Wednesday was a full day.
I was up at 5.40am for a 6am work shift. There was a lot of stock and stuff to do as REI has their Anniversary Sale on now and it's been really busy since last Friday.

After work I came home, showered and ate then tried to do a bit of packing for the Hawaii trip.
I did a couple of the local Prospect park Track Club's 5K races last year and I just noticed the first one was on that night, it's only $5 and with all my recent training I was just too tempted to see what time I could achieve, when I really should've stayed home and packed.

It was a warm night but the loop around the park is somewhat shaded so I managed to avoid wilting.

I ran hard from the start, for me anyway and managed mile splits of 6.15, 6.04 and 5.59, coming home in a PB smashing time of 18.54. My first time under 20 minutes, never mind under 19 minutes!
So that's 10 mile, half marathon and 5K PB's in the last 4 days.

Then home, shower, eat... and of course the packing went on until around 1.30am.