Nice friendly place - not! Signs like these are everywhere, even on public property like the road on the right. It's been said that people who live in Puna, especially in the south-east, are mainly fugitives from the law or those under the witness-protection programme. Which seems strange. What if a witness who fingered a killer who eventually escaped to here finds out the killer's a neighbour?
After our little adventure at the golf course and Footprints, we need sustenance. Pahoa, the capital of Puna, seems the best place to stop for some chow. It looks like a one-street cowboy town (complete with railings to tether horses) with an Asian accent. Besides the usual amenities shops, there are fortune-tellers and shops selling Buddhist paraphernalia, sarongs, tie-dyed tees, dream-catchers, incense. Very boho. But back to lunch. Should we have Mexican (LP describes it as having interesting customers, BI Revealed says it's grotty) or Thai (which is supposed to be authentic). We settle for Thai. As we wait for the food (two Thai women seem to run the place), I borrow the phone (local calls are free!!) to reserve a table tonight at Kilauea Lodge (Volcano's best offering). Our food arrives - green curry (a tad too sweet), salad is nicely sweet-sour and fluffy white rice. We ask and get chilli sauce - no chilli padi here. The restaurant is quiet, with only a few customers about.
We search for the Big Island Espresso shack for our shots, but cannot find it. We try Sirius Cafe - it serves 100% Kona coffee, naturally. There is a tarot-card reader in one corner. She is flipping her cards and studying us prospectively, but we avoid eye contact, in case she treats that as an invitation to "read us". A long-haired aged hippy pops in and out of the cafe. He seems high on weed or something and talks of surfing here and there. The cafe owner deals with him patiently - all in a day's work, I guess. We sip our coffee silently. Thankfully, it is good.
Lava Trees State Park is empty when we pull into the carpark. It is a mozzie-ridden place with one redeeming feature - there is a geocache here. The lava trees? Well, they look like moss-covered ruins of pillars. Again, as in other BI rainforests, the foliage is lush. The trees reach high up to the sky and the branches are heavy with flowers. I put on my raincoat - it's a better mozzie-repellent than mozzie-repellent. Then I spray myself and backpack with the anti-bug thing. It's drizzling - just as well that I have the raincoat on. We are all set.
We march past the trees and petrified moulds of former trees and plunge right into the thick of ferns and foliage. We poke in strange holes in the roots - they go deeper than our arms. All the while, our GPSr is pointing every which way but at the cache. A trio of studious-looking young adults asks us what we are doing off the beaten path. Rather huffily they tell us if we're not doing research, we shouldn't be here. They walk off and we continue trampling the ground - no wild orchids are damaged in the process... we hope. For sure, lava tree moulds are intact. After half an hour, I give up. I hang around the shelter and swing my pole to drive away mozzzzzeeeees. Ever stubborn, HB thrashes about in the undergrowth. Sometimes I don't hear her and I call out, just to make sure she hasn't been swallowed up by the ground. I tell myself, if she doesn't emerge by 3pm, I'm going in to haul her out. She appears - with seconds to spare. And empty-handed. We have to write this one off.
We walk about the park for a bit. Some other visitors walk by and we overhear them complaining about the mosquitoes. Yes, they thrive here. The lava trees form rather interesting and, er, suggestive shapes. We ogle at the plants - giants all of them. We spot what look like strawberries, but we daren't sample them. The white one on the left below is actually taken at the rim of Kilauea Iki. This must be the white strawberry that Mark Twain ate when he visited BI.
I'm not sure what is growing out of this tree. Looks like yam leaves up there. But the flowers are pretty.
We exit mosquito land. Both sides of the road are lined with tall, tall trees. Very verdant. We turn into the easternmost point of BI.
This is Cape Kumukahi. In 1960, lava shot up from a nearby sugar cane field and buried farms, a resort and Kapoho town. But as it flowed makai, it forked and spared the lighthouse here. This cape is supposed to have some of the freshest air in the world and air quality here is used as a control sample for comparisons with quality elsewhere. Except today, we spot two women in a parked red car (not us, I swear) polluting the air with cigarette smoke.
We've been stewing in our swimsuits all day. I had hoped we could do the Kapoho Tide Pools, Ahalanui Beach Park as well as Kehena Beach. Now, since when have I become an optimist. The tide pools are great for snorkelling and you can flow from one to the other. They sit among private property, but owners are supposed to allow public access. Kehena Beach is a nudist beach (also a known gay hangout, the guidebooks say). In the end, all we have time for is Ahalanui. And we drive right past it! We U-turn. The sign is only visible when you turn into the carpark.
But oh man, what a great place! Locals call it the hot pond. Walls have been hewn around it, there are lifeguards on duty and ocean water enters through inlets and gets warmed to a toasty 38 deg C! It's a natural hot-tub and you get waves crashing into it. We quickly find a spot to plonk our stuff. It's 4pm - not much time left. We find some ledges from where to slide into the water. There are grab-rails at some spots and that's where I head. HB keeps going "eeee" because we share the pool with creepy crawlies on the ground and along the walls and dangling from trees. There are tiny crabs about the size of the big toe. The water tapers deeper like in swimming pools and I keep to the edge. Kids are splashing about and there are fish in the water. It's fun... But all good things must come to an end. We pack up after half an hour. Up next, Kaimu Beach.
This is Kaimu Beach in the 1980s when it was a world-famous black sand beach fringed with mature coconut trees.
This is Kaimu Beach today. Lava in 1990 engulfed the beach, but one Kalapana resident who refused to let it die started planting coconut trees on the lava field. She died of cancer, but other residents continued her project. A new beach is being formed, but the water here is not swimmable. Maybe in another decade or so... Meanwhile, we struggle over the lava. There is a rainbow over the horizon... no, make that TWO rainbows.
By now the terrain is familiar, thanks to our adventure last night, plus the fact that there is still daylight. We make it to ground zero, where a geocache is hidden, and gaze at the little black beach being created. We turn back and gun for the two flagpoles in the distance. The return trek has taken us about an hour plus. A Verna's Drive-In awaits us at the end of the lava field, but we reluctantly push on back to our car. We need to go to the Kea'au shopping mall to get water and chips. Then rush back to Volcano for our 7.30 dinner.We make it just in time. No time to bathe and change into clean clothes. But, hey, it's Hawaii. Everybody is in casuals. We spot a Singapore Rotary Club plaque at the fireplace among plaques of Rotary and YMCAs around the world. We have Parker Ranch steak (very good) and ono (which it is not - "ono" means delicious and is also a fish). By the time we reach the B&B, it is 9pm - not so late like last night, but we are beat! And we have to do the Steam Vents Trail tomorrow because we are shipping out of Volcano after 3 wonderful days and nights here. Sigh...
Geocache count for the day: 3
BI geocache finds to date: 22
Did Not Find (DNFs, sniff): 3
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