#A Big Long Day

Bron and Ben were keen to do kayaking and we booked in for a tour first thing in the morning. After a rushed departure at 6.30 in the morning we arrived at the location in time for them to head off. They kayaked to the Captain Cook Memorial and back again and it was approximately 3 ks each way. They also got told a lot about the history of the island and the relationship with the British and Captain Cook in particular and his deputy, Vancouver.

While Bron and Ben were away I took the others to Walmart. As it’s July the 4 th today, there was a festive mood everywhere with American flags flying high from cars and buildings. It was also quite unique to see fireworks on sale at the shops and people buying them by the trolley load. As a treat I took the kids to Starbucks for morning tea and they enjoyed a chocolate croissant with a ‘soda’.

The kayak excursion ended at 1 and we headed to a local Hawaiian barbeque place for lunch. Matthew tried the pork ribs with rice while I had the seafood sampler. Emily was being particularly adventurous and had the chicken sushi. The serving portions were huge and the meals were sufficient to share between the 6 of us. Each of Emily’s sushi rolls was bigger than her hand.

Right at the bottom tip of the Big Island is a beach with very unique green sand which I really wanted to see. I had charted a route that also stopped by a bunch of other key locations along the way. We started at the Painted Church, which had been moved up the hill, plank by plank by the pastor almost a100 years ago. Then we stopped at a traditional Hawaiian village, the last one standing, which had tikis and carvings from almost 400 years ago. The walls along the waterfront had been built with volcanic rocks and no cement (or like) had been used. Inspite of this it has withstood the seasons for hundreds of years.

The final drive to the Green Sands Beach took another hour and it was a bit of a fizzer. The parts accessible by car had absolutely no beach or sand at all, just volcanic rocks. Apparently to view the Green Sands you need to hike another 3 kilometres which we weren’t able to do.

By the time we drove back it was starting to get quite late so we stopped at a fast food outlet called Jack In The Box for burgers. Ben made the mistake of ordering a large meal and the drink glass he got was bigger than his head. As we were part way through our meal we heard the fireworks. Luckily the place we were eating was halfway up a hill so we had prime views of all the fireworks.

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