Hawaii 50 - Big Island Part 3 (West)
We left Volcano National Park and headed west towards the Kona side of the island. On our way we stopped off at Punalu'u Black Sand Beach, which was beautiful. We enjoyed splashing around in the warm clear water looking at endangered Hawksbill turtles who were happy to swim around your feet while we tried to keep a safe distance from them.
A little further down the road, we took a turning on the recommendation of one of our friends on Facebook to Ka Lae, the southernmost point in both the Hawaiian Islands and the United States. From here we had planned to hike to Papakōlea beach, also known as Green Sand Beach. A bit of googling on route showed that it was going to be a 2-3 hour hike from the parking lot to get to the beach and we had arrived at the hottest part of the day. We decided to miss it out this time
Our next stop was Pu'uhonua o Honaunau National Historical Park. This turned out to be one of our favourite places during the trip. Until the 19th century, Hawaiians who broke the law could avoid a punishment of death by fleeing to a region of the west cost know as pu'uhonua, or "place of refuge," where they would be forgiven by a local priest. The park had a self-guided walking tour exploring the grounds and included kiʻi (wooden images of gods) that guard the Hale o Keawe Heiau, a sacred temple that housed the bones of 23 aliʻi (chiefs). There is black lava rock shoreline to make it just that little bit more difficult to those wanting to get to the refuge. Today, it is full of colourful fish and the clear waters make it easy to spot them. Next to the Pu'uhonua was the Royal Grounds, the sacred home of aliʻi. The tour showed us the the royal canoe landing, the Keōua Stone (the favorite relaxing place of the high chief of Kona, and you could see how often he relaxed from how worn the rock was!), hālau (thatched work house), fishponds and a heiau (sacred temple). We learnt a lot of about the Hawaiian culture and history from our stop here.
Finally we headed to the town of Kona where we were staying the night. We had chosen the Courtyard King Kamehameha's Kona Beach Hotel because it was close to the airport and I had Marriott points to use. This hotel turned out to be a little gem. The room was lovely, we had free drinks in the bar, the pool was relaxing with a live singer, there was a semi-private beach, and free snorkelling gear. Kona is a busy party town and we found a number of good bars and restaurants. We just wish we had more time here.
The next day we had a very early flight out of Kona International Airport heading to Kauai. Luckily for us, the party scene in Kona - and later we would find the same across most of the Hawaii Islands - stops at 10pm. So after a relatively early night, we made our flight and headed off to the next island.
Wow I never thought the black beach would be, well so black, it is really weird looking but so cool too. A nice pic of some whirligigs too, look just like ours!!
ReplyDeleteSome great views of the turtles and fish in the next beach after the southern most point. A number of the wooden statues all seemed to make 'a point' :-)
Sam tentatively snorkeling had me chuckling as she plucked up the courage to go into the water and then also as she first set off, you can hear a baby in the background which made it seem like that was the noise Sam was making as she snorkeled!! Then watching Lee, I'm not sure he was any braver, lots of standing around and looking :-)
Weird to be by the pool with a jazzed up Chrimbo song playing by the bar band but the town looked nice. The Airport experience looked basic but a beer early in the morning is always a winner. I wondered where the post credit scene was going - very good!!