Day 27: Hawi to Hapuna Beach

February 6, 2016

The Kohala Village Inn, our home for the past two days, is a combination hotel, community center, convention centre, and all sorts of other stuff. We rather enjoyed this aspect when the "barn" area was used for hula practice. But last night the barn, which was directly opposite our room, was booked for some sort of amateur rock band performance. We began to wonder about 5:30 p.m. when a drummer (full drum set - not Hawaiian anything) began warming up. I went to the front desk to find out what was up, and got the bad news - a 7:30 - 9:30 supposedly Bob Marley birthday celebration. I pointed out that they had charged us a premium because of this being Friday night, and there had been no warning that this was coming.

What came was actually three hours of tuneless thrashing about on two drum sets and three amplified guitars, plus one shouting vocalist. Then people hung around partying until 1 a.m. I phoned the hotel night number at 10, though it was hard to speak and hear from our room. They were very apologetic and said they would work out some compensation in the morning. Meanwhile I had done a Tripadvisor review. Tripadvisor has a special section for whether you consider a place quiet, normal, or loud. That was an easy one!

In the morning we were surprised to see that they refunded our entire day's payment. They were really nice, and we returned to feeling quite good about the place. Dodie, though, has been sleepy all day, having been mega shortchanged in the night.

One other thing that had been amiss got fixed this morning. We had been feeling hungry because of high prices and poor selection. But Saturday is market day, and by 8 a.m. 25 vendors were set up by the banyan tree across the street from us. Among them was "our" banana bread lady from last year, also offering varieties like mango pineapple and pumpkin cream cheese. We got banana walnut. There were also at least three other vendors with banana bread,so it was banana bread heaven.

Another category with plenty was fresh bananas. I selected a bunch of flavourful 4-6" apple bananas, and was pleased with the $1 total price.

We also found someone making "bento boxes" with bacon, sausage, egg, and rice. The bacon and sausage were super flavourful - so much so that this is something I would be looking to find again on another visit.

Coconuts for water often feature at the markets

Our banana bread lady, has other types as well.

Nice looking papaya from today's market.

Finally not at all hungry, we set off to the west, along the Kohala coast in the direction of Kona. At this point the highway has a good broad shoulder, making for very happy cycling. It's the route of the Ironman competition, which may or may not explain the constant flow of lycra clad warriors coming up from the Kona side. These cyclists are either pretty intense or pretty sour, as fewer than 50 percent returned our waves. That is, 50 percent of the males. The females were much more sociable.

This Iron Grampie is wisely heading downhill, while the lycra gang ascend from Kona.

we very quickly passed the turnoffs for two beach parks (Kapa'a and Mahukona) but we were holding out for Lapakahi. Lapakahi is the site of what was a major Hawaiian village for 600 years, but abandoned in the 1800's. Today it is an archaeological site, with the remains of sleeping huts, burial sites, boats launches, and etc. This is the dry and hot leeward side of Kohala, so the whole place is baking hot. There is a trail that leads from one numbered feature to another, with a supplied map from the ranger hut. Dodie loves walking among numbered things, mentally ticking them off. While we did do that, we mostly were just enjoying the walk and the multicoloured blues of the ocean.

Not all the ocean was blue, though. In spots there were clumps of Yellow Tangs - clearly visible from the shore. This would have been a good snorkeling spot, for a clear view of these and other fish.

These pots were used for evaporating sea water to get salt.

From Lapakahi it is kind of a long hot empty stretch down to Kawaihae. The main excitement was watching the ocean for whales breaching. The ranger said that a survey the other day had spotted 35 off the park, while something like 10,000 are said to pass Hawaii in the season.

The Kohala Coast is a lava desert, but extensive resort development turns it green in spots. Tomorrow we will see lots more of this.

Dodie had picked up an ad for Hamakua Macadamia Nut Company in Kawaihae early in the trip, and she had hung onto it until now. So we were on the lookout for the place, which otherwise we had never heard of. We did spot a sign that directed us up a steep hill, and decided to go for it. This turned out to be one of the best things for the day, and a highlight of the trip. The company has a large showroom, with unlimited free samples of all their products, plus free coffee. There were also giant scoops of ice cream at reasonable prices. In addition, there were windows onto the production floor, and a very informative film about the growing and processing of macadamias. And oh yes, the place was air conditioned and had tables and benches to sit at.

We spent at least an hour, looking at all the stuff, sampling many nut flavours, and answering UQs. The source of the UQs was almost all Canadians. The reason was that almost all the people visiting the place were Canadians. Marius/Sandra, there was even a couple from Vegreville, which we know is one of your favourite towns!

In the end, after very extensive testing, we settled on Kona Coffee Glazed nuts. We decided to get just a modest 5.5 oz can. The bigger bag would have had us really sick by evening.

Hamakua Macadamia Nuts showroom was a great discovery.

A vacuum can sealer. Much of the production can be seen through windows. Nothing happening today because it's the weekend.

From the film about growing and processing. Look at the mountain of nuts behind the man.

Waiting for coating with glaze, here are bundles of shelled nuts. The marble tables are used like in fudge making. All this processing and later packaging is done by hand.

A mountain of macadamia shells. These are burned to make power for the plant.

More pedalling brought us to the intersection with the road to Waimea, the road we had stopped at when Robert brought us down here a few days ago.

Large heiau (temple) Pu'Uko'hola at Kawaihae. For the second year running we have passed on detouring a bit to have a look at it. This major capital project ed in 1790 and 1791 under the command of Kamehameha I, as a precursor to his conquest of the other islands. He kicked off the campaign by killing the ruler of the south end of this island at the temple inauguration.

Some of the eucalyptus that was planted on former sugar cane land is now being harvested and shipped from Kawaihae.

Then we proceeded along the coast to Hapuna Beach, where we had reserved one of the six or so cabins in the Recreation Area, perched quite high above the busy beach.

The cabins have both a lot and a little. In each are two long wooden sleeping platforms and a small picnic style table. There are no windows per se, but lots of screening, two electric outlets, two electric lights, and a water spigot. In comparison to a tent, it's tremendous luxury. On the other hand, there are no mattresses, pillows, or linen, the rain comes in one end when it rains, and the washroom is a bit of a hike. Needless to say, we love it!

It is also a hike down to the beach, but we did that, and enjoyed the broad expanse of sand and gentle waves, that make this one of the premier beaches on the Island. We watched one 2 1/2 -3 year old surfing on a boogie board where the waves were just finishing up. She actually pretty good, and we could see a real lover of the water in the making.

We enjoyed not having to worry about hotel rules as we cooked up supper, and we are looking forward to a really peaceful sleep, mostly in the open air and with the sound of the sea quite nearby. Tomorrow we plan to cruise around the luxury resort areas of Mauna Lani and Waikoloa, before finally toddling in to Kona. Later, we will sally back up a bit, to pick up on exciting things in the north of Kona area.

Washroom and kitchen shelter at Hapuna cabins.

Oh, oh, damaged screens. With the Dengue emergency, the State ought to be fixing these.

Today's ride: 38 km (24 miles)
Total: 898 km (558 miles)

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