Aloha 2012

Day eight

Monday

This was our 'circle the island' day. We made our traditional PBJ lunch and headed south to loop around the bottom of the island, up the east side, across the saddle road between volcanoes and then down the west side to Kona. We check out places where we've been before to see what's new and what's 'just the same as always.' Occasionally we take a little side road to check out one of the many tiny towns off the main road. We stopped in Naalehu (the southernmost town in the US) at their famous little bakery to split a cream eclair and then headed through Punalu'u to check out the campground where we saw our very first mongoose when we camped there in 1989. (We also got VERY wet in this little campground)

Back on the road, we headed for Volcanoes National Park. And then it happened! Finally!

What!? What, you say?

Well, we finally got to see our very first, in the wild Nene. Actually four of them, just hanging out at the side of the road, browsing in the grasses there. The Nene is the State bird of Hawaii, and is an endangered bird.

Somebody's Father wisely asked, "Should I turn around and go back?" and that is why we are able to bring you this picture from our first Nene sighting.

Like all of our endangered Hawaiian wildlife pictures, it's a little fuzzy because of the telephoto and cropping necessary. But even though its fuzzy, it's still our very own Nene picture.
After the Nene excitement, and a chat with the classic over-the-hill, grey pony-tailed biker who was also watching the geese (I decided not to take a picture of him for my wildlife collection), we headed back down the road to Volcanoes National Park for our favorite little 'hike' through the tropical rain forest/lava tube. I love this little 5 minute stroll because there is a lot of lush vegetation and birds singing everywhere. You seldom see a bird, but you sure can hear them. Lots of them and lots of different kinds. One of these years, I'm going to get up early enough to get there before all the chattering people and record the birds.

Back on the road again, we stopped at Akatsuka's Orchid Gardens to admire the orchids and see if we could find a particular variety that I had decided to purchase this year. After much searching, and succumbing to the temptation of a few other varieties, we finally located the one I wanted, arranged to have everything shipped home, and headed to Hilo.

Not one of the ones we bought, but pretty!

In Hilo, we finally accomplished one of our long-time Hilo goals: We identified exactly which road in town would take us directly to the Saddle Road, a road that cuts quite a bit of time off of the drive around the island. This would have been easy if we had simply taken the Saddle Road from Kona to Hilo, but since we were driving the opposite direction, it involved weaving through town until we finally found ourselves on the Saddle Road, and then turning around and driving back in to town until we reached the main highway. With that mystery solved, we headed off along the Saddle Road, passing through the "saddle" between the two largest volcanoes, the military reserves, etc until we arrived in Waimea for a nice dinner at the Red Water Cafe: Kiawe-smoked baby back ribs for me and a Spicy Ahi, avocado, ogo, cucumber and lemon zest roll with a spicy aioli plus a seared Ahi entree for O. Then it was straight back to Kona and into bed. A big day and a big drive around the Big Island.