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North Kohala Coast

HAWAII, Nov 24 - Our first Big Island explorations took us north, toward Hawi, a small town on the Kohala peninsula - the northwestern tip of the island (see the above maps).

But first, we stopped to explore and enjoy the sights and sounds of the little village of Puako, just north of the Mauna Lani and Fairmont Orchid resorts.

From there, we could see the Kohala peninsula in the distance (middle left), on whose northern tip the road dead ends at the huge vertical cliffs that resemble the Cliffs of Moher in western Ireland (middle right).  A lush valley leads to and ends at that beach below (right).

"The Tree and I" would be a good caption for that leftmost shot.  Not far from there, we stopped to explore a little jungle creek where Elizabeth also showed her fascination with trees.  She looks as if she is about to start climbing that huge banyan in the rightmost shot. :-)

Yours truly, on the other hand, enjoyed the rocks.  Big rocks. Not exactly the kind you can stuff into a shaman's mesa.  That's where I also discovered what I though was THE Big Island rock.  "The stone on the right is shaped just like the map of the island," I told Elizabeth.  Later, I placed the yellow markers for some prominent spots on the island.

The best way to describe the scene in the left shot was "Four Girls and the Waves."  Elizabeth and the three little girls were shrieking with joy each time a wave crashed around their feet.

I took a picture of one big one (left), before it smashed into the rocks in front of me.  On our way back up to the road, we passed an interesting World War II site - a bunker or a gun emplacement, overgrown by banyan trees.  I told Elizabeth, "look, now that the soldiers have left, the banyans have moved in and are pulling guard duty."

Just south of Hawi, we saw some of those modern windmills and headed toward them.  Ironically, even though there was a strong northerly wind, they weren't turning.  From there, and a tiny Uppola airport strip, we could see Maui's Haleakala volcano in the distance.  But you really had to know what to look for in order to discern it.  Which is why I marked it for you in yellow.  Back in civilization, at a small plaza near Mauna Lani, we saw this little girl riding the waves on the wings of a turtle (middle right).  A few minutes later, a big girl in black pants was stepping ever so carefully toward a real turtle sun-tanning on a real beach.

That was in front of the Fairmont Orchid resort, where I had stayed the last time I was on Big Island (Sep 2007).  Indeed, there were beautiful orchids on the balcony overlooking the resort.  As Elizabeth and I walked around, there were some pretty yellow birds (canaries?) playing in the grass.  I remembered seeing them, and in fact, taking a picture of one at roughly the same spot, back in 2007.

As we continued our walk, we saw our old friend (turtle) still sun-tanning on the beach (left), and some other beautiful ocean scenes along the waterfront.

I could not leave the Fairmont hotel without taking a picture of that gorgeous flower arrangement in the main lobby (left).  I also took Elizabeth on a surprise trek through the thick desert buch around the resort to an ancient sacred place where one can see petrohlyphs carved into these rocks by original Hawaiian people thousands of years ago.  Nobody knows quite what it was that they were trying to tell us, nor why they picked this particular place for worship.  But to me, it was a uaca, just like the sacred Inka places we had seen in Peru, such as Saqsaywaman, just north of Cusco.  That's where I picked up a new kulla for my mesa, a lava stone that's probably millions of years old (right).

After we cleaned up, we came back to the Fairmont later in the evening, for a lovely beachside dinner, and a little after-dinner music at the bar.  Elizabeth was ready to put out a donation jar as people were stopping to compliment a song or clap here and there. :-)

To be continued...

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