Day 18: Honokaa to Waimea - Grampies Go Hawaiian Winter 2014 - CycleBlaze

December 4, 2014

Day 18: Honokaa to Waimea

Breakfast at the Waipio Wayside was very carefully prepared, from organic ingredients. There was french toast with Canadian maple syrup, yoghurt with granola, fruit smoothie. fresh passon fruit and banana, and so forth. Our hostess, Jacqueline would have had grounds to wonder about us. As she described the wonders of the passion fruit butter, we just inhaled everything in sight.

Jacqueline had described for us a shortcut to Waimea, that involved something called Cane Haul Road, back in the wilderness, and the unpaved Mud Lane, which would be 4 km of pushing the bikes on a rough surface. We decided to chicken out and take the main road, though this involved backtracking and then putting up again with the truck traffic.

The backtrack, of about 4 km, which had seemed quite up and down yesterday, was no problem. This could have been the initial glow of the passion butter in our systems. After that, the road began an earnest climb, It climbed continuously for 17 km. After that, it went up and down for 5 km, and finally we cruised flat or down on in to Waimea.

During its "up" phase, the road rose beyond 2500 feet. At this altitude we were no longer in tropical conditions at all. Rather we had the grasslands and cattle that this area is known for . Actually, there were also a fair number of sheep. Sheep seem to put in appearances in places made famous by cattle - such as Holland, where the sheep seem to far outnumber everything.

In sync with the change to the landscape, the housing and ambiance changed as well. Now we had rural scenes of scattered houses and small farms that could have been anywhere in mainland USA, or Canada. The rural scenes soon gave way to Waimea proper. Again, gone were the rusted roof and weathered (and to some, quaint) houses and businesses of the Hamakua Coast. In their place was more or less anywhere America low rise fairly new looking construction, housing banks, supermarkets, and the like, in a prosperous feeling, non-scuzzy, spread out, townscape.

Of course, while cycling on the mainland we will be quick to criticize this kind of townscape as cookie cutter suburbia, with no Main Street and no soul. But somehow today we welcomed it as bright and convenient.

We found the Parker Ranch centre. This was no San Francisco "Galleria" monster shopping thing, but rather a classical strip type centre, arranged in a U shape, with maybe ten stores and a food court, and the Parker Ranch store at the centre. The Ranch store was nothing more than a souvenir shop mated with the sale of some ranch type clothing. We had come looking for Village Burgers, which had been highly recommended in the Guestbook by Robert Ewing . By the way, to see the Guestbook, click on "contact" at the top of any page of this journal, or equally click on Guestbook in the menu bar at the top.

Village Burger was holding down an outside corner of the food court, and there would have been no way to know how great it is, unless you know. The first real clue was when I asked for my burger well done, and was told it would take 15 minutes to achieve that. The reason turned out to be that the cooked burgers are one inch thick, so making one well done does take some time. The burgers, like at Gramma's Kitchen in Honokaa, are made from the local beef, and you can really taste it. These burgers are better than ones we have made from beef we raised ourselves at home. Maybe its the unique plants in the pasture, or the tropical sun. Anyway, Village burgers were a little bigger and better than Gramma's, and they had another big plus: double cooked but not greasy fries. Overall, the best burger meal anywhere.

With such a nice meal under the belt, it is natural to look for a good desert. Like coffee and something from a bakery? I put the question to Google Maps, and after suggesting two supermarkets in town, it seemed to admit that there was a bakery. Only thing, it placed the bakery in the middle of a park. The park seemed to be labelled "Waimea" and I thought this might be designating the Waimea Center - but though there is such a place, it is across the street. Luckily, before I charged off into the park, brandishing my coffee cup, it dawned on me. The park is at the geographic centre of Waimea, and Google, only suspecting that Waimea has a bakery, was suggesting I go to that centre and good luck to me after that. Gee, thanks!

So, with me slightly out of sorts about no dessert, we set off to find our B&B - the Jacaranda Inn. Staying in B&Bs, in fact, stopping so short as Waimea at all, was not something we had planned on, but rather was an improvisation to help deal with Dodie's knee problem. So the Jacaranda was not the result of careful research, but rather the first thing we found with a vacancy. Now, as we passed through Waimea, we saw at least two motel type establishments that looked vacant, and cheap. Oh well, we had told Jacaranda we would be there, so we would keep our word.

When we pulled up in front, our resolve wavered a bit. Here were vast manicured lands and a large house. How much had we thought this was costing? We pulled our bikes along a walkway lined with Bird of Paradise and mounted the steps. Then we entered a long hallway, with luxuriously appointed meeting and dining rooms left and right. At the far end we found the person in charge, and verified that we had put our names down for a $149 plus tax room. The lady lead us outside and among what turned out to be eight guest cottages, or suites, or something. We no longer had any idea where we had left our bikes, on this large property. Our cottage comprosed a giant room with high ceilings, and all done up in large Mexican tile. There are two leather couches and a large bamboo bed, The bathroom has a walk in shower room, a sink room, and a jacuzzi style tub.

We went back to find our bikes, and were successful. In fact we also found John and Cindy - the other Canadian cyclists, who we had encountered at Volcano. John and Cindy and us, and one other couple make up as far as we can tell the total complement of cyclists on the island. Since Volcano, we learned, we have been close to John and Cindy - lodging at a site or town one day behind or ahead, or being at Wild Ginger while they were at Arnott's. Tomorrow we will all generally head toward Hawi.

We decided to try out the tub first thing. Dodie, being my treasure, goes first. She started the tub filling and called me to look at the control for the eight jets. "We have to wait 'till it fills", she observed. "Well not quite", I helpfully chipped in, see, that intake fitting is already covered". " Hit the switch and get it going". For some reason, contrary to common practice born of long experience, Dodie did as I suggested. Yes the intake sucked in the water, and the jets blasted it out all over the room!

I laughed and laughed, but Dodie, whose formerly dry clothes were by the tub, was less amused. In fact, I can safely say, she was not amused.

Now, with both of us properly bathed, we are sitting on our leather couches - one each. We have read the history of this place: It started out as the residence of the manager of the huge nearby Parker Ranch, It then passed to various wealthy owners, including in the sixties, Laurance Rockefeller. At that time it had guests such as Henry Kissinger and Jacquie Kennedy. (I wonder which couch she took?) Anyway, for us, this sure is a great break from sleeping on the concrete floors of picnic shelters!

Photos - coming soon.

Typical Honokaa style
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17 km like this, always up
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The road goes higher than this yet. Any height today will help tomorrow, when we ascend to 3800 feet before descending to Hawi.
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Waimea - lush cattle country.
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Sheep too!
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Off to our left was Mauna Kea. Here, through a break in the clouds is a view of the famous observatories.
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The Parker Ranch centre - not really a major shopping experience.
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Village burgers, and fries!
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Take a closer look at how thick that burger is!
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Here is an employee showing me that it really is local beef.
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By our table.
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The hills here really are green.
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Inside the Jacaranda Inn
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Our bikes have a place of honour in a walk lined by Bird of Paradise plants.
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John and Cindy - two of the other cyclists on the Island. They are Canadians. The other two are basically from Michigan. And that's it! (Note Bob trailer in the background)
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Our room at the Jacaranda Inn.
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The entertaining Jacuzzi type tub.
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Today's ride: 32 km (20 miles)
Total: 550 km (342 miles)

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