#Driving Day

Since we had the car for the whole week I had planned a day of driving down the West coast to see some of the sights. We had a sleep in (even Matthew) and headed down for breakfast, and we weren’t done till 10.30.

Our first stop was a place called “End of the World” which is a beach where a battle took place and over 300 natives died. It is called the end of the World as the civilisation almost ended with that battle. We then drive to a local coffee farm to do a tour. This region, Kona, is known for its coffee and surprisingly the first plantation was established by an Australian who settled he in the mid 19th century. For lunch we visited a traditional Hawaiian fish shop however the kids all wanted hamburgers. I had a traditional ‘poke’ which is rice served with marinated raw fish. I tried the local salmon and mahi and they were both fantastic.

One of the interesting things about the island is the difference in climate and weather along the coast. Just south of the airport is sunny every morning with afternoon showers and then clearing in the evening. However North of the airport out rarely rains. We got to experience a perfect example of this as we were driving back to the resort. We drove through some very heavy rain with minimal visibility for about 10 minutes and then ended up with the clearest sites. I took a panorama at this point where one end of the photo has dark and stormy clouds while the other end has bright sunlight.

We stopped at the lava tubes on the way back to the hotel. These were formed a few hundred years ago when lava last flowed in this part of the island and form the outer shell of the flooring lava. We walked through the tubes and it was quite incredible. The walls and ceiling is all charred and burnt and the tube is almost 10 metres in diameter.

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