17 July 2006 Waimea welcome

How's this for a nice Aloha to Waimea? After dropping our barang-barang at our next B&B, we take in the surroundings and lo and behold! A rainbow greets us.

But back to the morning at Holmes Sweet Holmes. Once again we have breakfast with the grannies. This time Charlotte's husband, John, joins us for a while. He describes the Mauna Loa eruption of 1984 when the lava threatened to engulf Hilo, and how he could see it from his apartment in Hilo's tallest building - then and now - all of 17 floors! How people stayed cool and didn't budge from their homes. Thankfully, the lava stopped a few miles north of the town, and everyone went back to what they were doing. Charlotte used to work at HVNP - we discover this when we see farewell scrawls from colleagues in her book she shows us of the volcanoes.

Charlotte has a Singaporean friend, a former air stewardess. When we ask her if we talk funny, she says she told her friend she has guests who sound just like her! Then we tell her about the chaps who were jailed for making racist remarks on their blogs. And there is stunned silence... Finally Charlotte says diplomatically, "There is a fine balance between freedom of speech and what can spark violence." I guess Americans are bred to fight for their rights regardless of how they affect others. But slowly Bush may be taking their rights away...

Meanwhile, Winifred grates us again with her litany of Nathan marvels. So it's no wonder that while we pack up later, Charlotte sneaks into our room with 2 leis and tells us in conspirational tones that she doesn't have any for Winifred and Nathan! Oops!

Just before we reach the Hawaii Tropical Botanical Gardens, we see a spot we have been wavering about visiting - Onomea Bay. There's an interesting cache here - finders drop off postcards here. Why do we hesitate? Just before we left for Hawaii, TWO geocachers reported that their rental cars were broken into. One team lost US$1,000 along with GPS units, cameras and travel bugs. Okay, so they shouldn't have left valuables in the car, but... So I stand guard - which is terribly boring, but I also don't like mozzies - while HB takes the trail down to the bay. Our lone car by the road is soon joined by others. I am itching, not from the mozzies, but because I am torn between staying to watch over our stuff and wanting to hike down. I watch as a local pulls up, surfboard on car. He starts arranging lauhala hats, mats and baskets woven from hala leaves. I am tempted to buy, but practicals stop me. What would I do with them? Besides, the leaves are so broad, the items look very rough-hewn. HB finally emerges, excited to have found the container and the postcards from many different places. She has dropped off a Singapore postcard (yes, I carry some on our holidays, so when people ask us about Singapore, I can pull them out. But I never do and could slap myself for not doing it!)

On to the Hawaii Tropical Botanical Gardens. Even as we park our car, we spot them - Winifred and Nathan. We grit our teeth and go to the ticketing office. Aargh, they want to do the gardens together. We tell them we're shopping for souvenirs first. That gets them off our backs for some time.

Many of the plants in the gardens are not native to Hawaii, but we are amazed at the variety and how huge the plants are. So many types of ginger plants and only one we can eat! And look at the heliconia below - that's me showing the scale of its growth. And I've never seen so many flowers on a cannonball tree!

We drive in anticipation to the end of the road that the gardens is at. What's there? What's Shakin' - all guidebooks say it serves the best smoothies. Two women man the shack. Behind it is the fruit plantation that supplies the shack. No ice is used in making the smoothies, says the sign there. Only frozen fruit. The proof of the pudding is in the eating - and this one gets top marks. Although we have to wait a long time for our sandwich - we share because we figure one smoothie each is already an indulgence. I like the way the sandwich is garnished with tropical fruit like lychee and papaya. Yummmmmmms.
Akaka Falls is what guidebooks describe as a drive-up waterfall. Just park the car, climb some steps and look. It's a paved trail that needs more walking than Rainbow Falls. There are 2 falls here actually. Kahuna is not as impressive as Akaka. But we can't get up close to both - no swimming in these waters. We skip another impressive waterfall because to get a good look at the tumbling water we have to pay to get into another Tropical Gardens. This one though (I forget its name) is more photo-worthy.

We skip the rest of the scenic/heritage drive - we know what rainforests look like! But we turn off to do a virtual cache that has several checkpoints. It's called April Fool - but not because it's a joke. On that day in 1946 at about 7am, a tsunami created by an Alaskan quake hit the island. At this spot in Laupahoehoe town was - and still is - a school. Kids, fascinated that the water receded to leave fish belly-up, went to take a closer look. Twenty-four people died that day, most of them kids - the youngest was 3 months - and a handful of adults. Small number, but in a small town, it was a colossal loss. We can empathise with them. We like the cache for the story behind it. The town has moved up the cliff, but a school remains here. At the shore, there's a slipway for boats.

We stop at the rather deserted Kalopa state park to hunt another cache. The sky is gloomy, but thankfully, it is an easy find. And we find ourselves in Kamuela-Waimea, the centre of cowboy (or paniolo - that's Mexican) country, before 5pm. It's nice and cool here because it's about 2,500ft above sea level.

Aah the Views B&B lives up to its name. We get the Stream Room, which has a big picture window right above a gurgling stream. On the horizon, we can see the observatories on Mauna Kea! HB is seen here lounging in the lanai of the family's house, enjoying free wireless surfing. A bit of the stream is on the right. And here is where we spot the rainbow.

We make a reservation to have dinner at one of the two swanky restaurants in town, Daniel Thebaut's. The decor isn't swanky - more homey, with homespun wooden signboards decorating the walls, and wicker chairs. We order one of every course and the staff kindly split the food for us into separate servings. We enjoy the seared tuna and the salad and I can't remember what else. What I remember is we don't like the lilikoi mai-tai. When we tell the waitress that, she takes it off our bill! And we give her a tip that's the price of the mai-tai!

Back at the B&B, the man we share the bathroom with isn't back from wherever. So we take turns to shower and then stare, mouths open, at the picture window. It's filled with stars!!! We can lie in bed and look for shooting stars. Starry-eyed and then dozy.....zzzzz....

Geocache count for the day: 3