A trip of a lifetime in many ways... but aren't all holidays something special? It was my first (perhaps, my only) trip with my sister and my sister only. It was awesome. No tantrums and only minor disagreements. Who would have thought?
The first half of the trip was spent on the island called Hawai'i, nicknamed the Big Island so as not to confuse everyone with the Hawaiian Islands in general. It was the island of adventure and loads of papayas, rambutan and other exotic fruits.
We got straight into in the next morning. Bright-eyed and getting up at 6 AM for a kayak/snorkel tour at probably the BEST snorkelling location on the Big Island: Captain Cook's Monument. You have to paddle about 2 km there and back. It's an easy paddle but with everything surrounding you (i.e. OPEN water, who knows WHAT ELSE is in the water), it can be a little bit scary. We were in a group of 6 plus an awesome guide. Cute too. :P
Snorkelling was the best fun. Who would have known that fish swim so close to shore or there are so so many yellow tangs around. Had a bit of a walk around the monument where Captain Cook fell. He had an altercation with the local people and was caught in a fight. As he couldn't swim, he was unable to make it back to his boat and died. True story.
It made for the best start to our holiday and made us want to snorkel more. We visited Two Step the next day but the waves and current were quite strong there. It didn't stop the masses of people visiting this beach. We went over towards the beach and went snorkelling there instead. A lot easier. The waters here weren't as clear as the day before but still beautiful. We dried off and went for a short walk around the wave damaged historic park which was a place of refuge. A lot of the attractions were closed due to recent wave damage.
We also visited a couple of coffee plantations and did a coffee tour. Very educational and I now appreciate coffee even more than I did before. Even if I disagree with the way coffee is brewed in Hawaii. Plunger vs machine?
On the fourth day, we drove from one side of the island to the other (it's not that far) and stopped along a couple of noteworthy attractions like the Waipio Valley and Akaka falls. Both beautiful and breathtaking. So was our impromptu picnic lunch of chicken, salad and milk shared with the stray cat sitting on the picnic benches outside the National Park. Scavenger! Lucky we had lots to share.
There were two main attractions on the east side of the island we wanted to see. The first was stargazing at Mauna Kea Observatory. Unfortunately for us, it was very very very very windy and dangerous the evening that we went so no telescopes were rolled out for viewing. We did see some stars with our naked eye but without the telescopes and due to the dust the wind picked up, there wasn't much else we could see so made the slow descent back to the hotel to watch Chicago PD instead!
The second was the volcano. AMAZING day. I didn't think we needed to spend a whole day there but we got there around midday and we spent a good 7 or 8 hours there. We had chips, jerky, bread and water and we were set! We did a 3 km round trip in the scorching sun to see lava artwork. We walked to the edge of the park to see where the volcanic lava turned into lava rock and created a sea arch. We walked a trail of destruction to see the devastation of lava flow. We went through a lava tube which is a bit like a save. And we stayed till dark to see the glow of the active volcano that had erupted last year.
It was goodbye to the Big Island and hello shopping and tourist strip on O'ahu and Waikiki. It was the right decision to stay on the strip. Worth being close to the action. We were up in a high floor so the noise was minimised and this was important on Saturday night when the area turns into nightclub-esqe feel. Loud music, screaming, doof doof. Ew.
We did equal parts activities and shopping. And some beach time too. Some things you can't do in Australia. Like ATV riding. Insurance in Australia wouldn't have allowed to us to do something like this. It was pretty cool to ride around the trails where Jurassic Park was filmed.
We also visited the Palace and some famous statues of their royalty. We had yum cha in Chinatown which wasn't anywhere near as good as Sydney's. In fact, the food was average in comparison. Not much fresh meat and veg. The sashimi products weren't nearly as fresh as ours and hence, we ate it once and decided not to again (read between the lines!).
We were so lucky with shopping - additional discounts and shopping events, etc. Some things were still pretty expensive. We weren't so lucky sightseeing with no barrel waves on the North Shore, no stars at Mauna Kea, wave damage to some of the National Parks, etc.
And the funniest thing was the day that we were leaving. I thought our flight was at 10 am. But it was at 9. We got to the airport at 8 AM and we were thinking, oh we're so early! And then we see the crew check in and we're like.. oh... they're here so early too!! Then, the girl at the counter told us boarding started at 8:45. err... what?! We still had to go through customs and walk across the terminal to our gate on the other side!!! But we made it... phew... and it was refreshing to hear Australian accents and be comforted in the knowledge that we were on our way home.
