Oh, a most excellent day!

Oh, a most excellent day!  It started out by Debbie waking up at 3:45 am, for no apparent reason.  We got up early, and were ready to leave for our planned day around Pahala and Na'alehu by 5:15 am.  We actually started on the way down there, knowing we'd get to the good birding before sunrise, when I had a brilliant idea: let's go see the lava erupting in Halemaumau!

It was still dark when we pulled into the Jaggar Museum parking lot.  We could see an orange glow in the sky from our truck, so we knew there was at least the possibility that we'd actually see erupting lava.  When we walked up to the fence of the observing area, we could see (naked eye) splashes and fountains.  In our binoculars it was like seeing one of those National Geographic videos of bubbling lava.  I've seen something this once before, from my perch on the crater rim of Pu'u O'o some twenty years ago.  Debbie had never seen it.  We watched until the sky started to lighten.  Humbling and beautiful, it was.

Then we continued down to just south of Pahala, where we started the birding part of our day.  You can see the track of our entire day if you're interested in the gory details, or in doing it yourself.  We wandered all over the slopes of Mauna Loa west of Pahala.  Sometimes we were on paved roads, sometimes on dirt roads, sometimes on very rugged four-wheel roads.

We had one serious four-wheeling event, when we needed to cross a gully carved out of the lava by an intermittent stream.  This gully was about 60' wide, perhaps 10' deep, and extremely rough on the bottom.  I had to get out and walk the gully to find a route that we could take that wouldn't cause us to scrape the bottom.  That route was an "S" shape, with a very tight turn on the second curve.  I took it very slowly, and we made it just fine – but I'd bet we came within an inch of bottoming. :)

Our route took us through many radically different floras: macadamia orchards, coffee orchards, farmed eucalyptus (for paper pulp), pastures, and natural forests.  Our altitude ranged from sea level to almost 3,000'.  The scenery was beautiful, and so varied that the only way to understand it would be to see the photos (below).

The birding was fantastic, not so much for variety as for frequency of viewing opportunities.  We had many sightings of common amakihi, red billed leiothrix, yellow-fronted canaries, Japanese white eyes, and mynas, plus we saw an io (Hawai'ian hawk) whirling in a thermal.  We reveled in the almost non-stop bird viewing, even if many of them weren't natives.

After all this hard birding, we were ready for a meal by the time we ended up in Na'alehu.  We stopped again at Hana Hou, and once again had a great meal with friendly service.  We both chose the roast pork this time (and this was my first meal of this trip with an entree of something other than seafood!), and it was as good as we'd anticipated.  I had gravy on mine, and it was especially good: full of roast pork taste and neither greasy nor salty.  This time we had room for dessert, and Debbie had a (huge!) slice of coconut cream pie while I had a slab of liliko'i (passion fruit) bar.  Both were excellent.

The table next to ours had a mom, pop, and teen-aged girl, all Japanese.  The girl walked over to our table, very tentatively, got my attention (while looking terrified) and asked me if I was American.  I said yes, and then asked her why she thought I might not be.  Answer: my hat.  I've been wearing an Australian bush hat while over here, to protect my head (my family is prone to skin cancers, and I'm not taking chances).  She hadn't seen any such hat in Hawai'i, so thought I might be a foreigner too.  She was so embarrassed to be asking!  But apparently her desire to know overcame her fear. :)  I talked with her for a few minutes, trying to put her at ease, and I think I finally did.  I'm still not sure why the idea that we might be foreigners was interesting to her.

After we finished eating, we retraced about half our day's drive and did some more birding.  Along the way I discovered a wasp on my window, which I shooed out of the car after I opened the window.  A few minutes later, Debbie discovered one on her window, which prompted a 400 decibel scream, followed by much frantic motion.  I'm sure my hearing will recover someday...

The photos from this part of day:

After we finished up, around 3:30 pm, we started to head home when Debbie had a great idea: to go back to Kipuka Puaulu (the bird park) and walk that 1.2 mile trail.  This would be our third time this trip, but it's a beautiful trail and we might see some birds – and we'd both get a walk, which would feel really good after a day mostly in a car seat. 

So off we went on this walk, which was beautiful – and we also had some fantastic bird watching.  We had lengthy and close views of two apapane and one red-billed leiothrix, plus good sightings of an oma'o, common amakihi, and a northern cardinal.  Very nice, that walk was!

Then to top it all off, on the way home we saw a brilliant rainbow.  Seriously!

A most excellent day, indeed.

Laundry, waves, growth, and poke...

Laundry, waves, growth, and poke...  Well, today was a bit of a mixed bag.  Our first job this morning was to get our laundry done.  We decided to try a new place on this trip: the wash and fold service at Downtown Laundry Express, because Yelp had it rated so highly.  Their wash and fold service was priced at $1.35 per pound, which meant our laundry would cost us about $25.  All we'd do is drop off the dirty laundry, then come back the same afternoon to pick it up.  That's a bargain so far as we're concerned, as it means we don't have to hang around the laundromat for a few hours waiting to get it done – we can take off and do some sight-seeing.  That's exactly what we did this morning, and this afternoon when I popped in to pick it up, I got all our laundry back, all nicely folded up and my shirts hung – for the princely sum of $22.65.  They did a great job with all of it, lost nothing, and fast and friendly service to boot.  Total time we spent on this chore: about 10 minutes.  Win!

While we waited for our laundry, we set off on a repeat of a trip we made something like 25 years ago.  On that long-ago trip, we left Hilo traveling east along the beach road, and continued all the way around Cape Kumukahi to the Chain of Craters Road in Volcanoes National Park.  This time we had to make that trip a bit differently.

First, the rude dirt road that used to traverse the coast east of Hilo to Cape Kumukahi is now gated off just a couple miles east of Hilo.  We couldn't go far that way at all!  Even that short trip was kind of mind-blowing, though.  On our past visit, most of that was wild, overgrown land with some homeless people living near the beach in giant concrete drainage pipe sections.  Now it's a large and upscale development, with fancy houses, paved roads, and beautiful beach side parks – very, very different from what we saw on our last visit to this area.

We drove back to Hilo, up to Kea'au, then down Kaloli Drive to the shore.  After that we could take various roads all the way along the shore to Cape Kumukahi.  This area was even more mind-boggling to us.  The last time we were here, it was a mix of wild land, small farms, and sparse downscale housing.  This time it was a densely populated suburb with a mix of midscale to upscale housing, mostly on lots of an acre or less.  We did run into a few short stretches that looked mostly like it used to, but darned few.  There were hundreds of lots for sale.  The highway from Kea'au to Pahoa, is now a six lane superhighway, where it used to be a narrow two lane road – and no wonder!  All those people who live down there have to use that road to get in or out of the area.  The area of our memories is almost completely gone, and the aggregate population there must be something like 10 or 12 times what it was.

Finally, we drove down toward the Chain of Craters Road, though we knew we couldn't actually get there – that road was overrun by lava from Pu'u O'o many years ago, near Kalapana.  Last time we were at that site, a barricade and the remains of the old subdivision overrun by lava were the only thing there.  Now it was a commercial emporium, with art galleries, photograph vendors, lava tour hawkers, and gazillions of sun-burned, unhappy-looking tourists.  We turned around and ran as fast as we could go.  Some photos below of this trip, along with a short video at right:

We got done with all this around 1 pm, a bit too early to pick up our laundry, so we decided to eat.  Guess where?  If you said “Suisan for poke!”, you win the prize!  For the third time now, we got a two choice bowl.  Today I had ahi Hawai'ian and ahi sesame shoyu; Debbie had ahi sesame shoyu plus spicy lobster salad.  Both of us thought our selection this time was the best of our three.  We drove down to Richardson's Ocean Park on the far eastern edge of Hilo to park and shovel poke into our faces.  It's a beautiful spot, and it wasn't very crowded.  We faced the ocean as we ate, and watched a seabird catching fish in a fish pond, a photographer flying a drone over the breaking waves, and the waves breaking on the rocks.  We also saw, quite accidentally, a humpback whale breaching a few hundred yards out from the beach.  We saw a second one do the same a few minutes later. 

We only saw a few birds on the whole day's outing, but we did see two separate io (Hawai'ian hawks).  They're not too common, so that counts for something.  We also saw some yellow-billed cardinals just north of Kalapana, so now we've seen all three cardinal species present on the Big Island.

After our feast we drove into town and picked up our laundry, then headed to Da Hawai'ian Brain Freeze Shave Ice & Ice Cream to get a cold treat.  They serve ice cream and sorbet from Tropical Dreams, which we know from previous trips is a superior product – especially the sorbets.  Debbie had a Kona Coffee ice cream cone, and I had a mango sorbet cone.  Yummy, those were!

Tomorrow we're going to head back down toward Pahala and that gorgeous road we found – birding and sight-seeing are in our immediate future...

An unexpectedly great day!

An unexpectedly great day!  We set out today to explore the nether (southern) regions of the Big Island, in particular the new section of Volcanoes National Park (called Kahuku, formerly a large cattle ranch).  We did do that, but we also did a bunch of other things, including seeing more birds than we have on any other day this trip.

The first thing we did was to make the walk in Kipuka Puaulu again, this time getting there at 7 am.  We had the kipuka to ourselves until we were nearly done with the walk, a couple of hours later.  The first photo below shows Mauna Loa beautifully lit up by the early morning sun.  We have only rarely seen Mauna Loa with such clarity, and not long after I took this photo the haze rolled in.  Mauna Loa is a shield volcano with no large cinder cones, so in profile it looks like a little mound.  The summit of Mauna Loa is about 20 miles from where I took that photo, and is 13,679' high (about 9,500' higher than where I took that photo).  It sure doesn't look like such a massif!  The rest of the photos are from the loop trail in Kipuka Puaulu.  Debbie did the walk much faster today than she did just a few days ago – our walking is doing her a world of good.  Her knees are feeling pretty good, too.  We heard far more birds than we saw, but we did see a few (documented later in the birding section).

After we finished this walk, we high-tailed it for Na'alehu – the southernmost town in the U.S.  The drive took us through Ka'u, the southeast area of the Big Island.  It was clear there in the morning, and the scenery from a roadside pullout quite beautiful (at right).  We drove through Na'alehu and a couple of smaller towns until we got to the entrance for the new section of the National Park, Kahuku.  We were hoping that we'd be able to drive up into the old ohia forests a couple thousand feet higher in elevation, but the upper slope sections are completely closed, even to hikers.  The reason is a good one, though: they're trying desperately to prevent infection of those stands by the Rapid Ohia Death fungus – and so far, they've been successful.  We could, however, drive part way up, so we did.  We were glad we took the time, because the upper elevations of the part that's still open are a riparian environment with former pastureland mixed with ohia trees – similar to the old Parker Ranch on Mauna Kea, but with ohias instead of koas (see first photo below).  That area was full of birds, and we got some great bird watching in there (species listed later in this post).  The second photo shows a fence post that someone rather stupidly sawed flat on top.  The resulting standing water hosted organisms that have severely damaged top of the post.  In these parts (where they get a lot of rain) one would think they'd know better!

After leaving Kahuku, we headed for Ka Lae, the southernmost tip of the Big Island.  We passed a coffee house (Ka Lae Coffee) along the way, and naturally Debbie wanted to stop in for a drink (she might be addicted :).  As the link says, the coffee was good and the service was very friendly.  Even better: there's an orchid nursery attached!  After we got our coffee we ambled through a couple of shade houses there, gawking at their gorgeous horticultural orchids:

Ka Lae itself was interesting, but not particularly scenic in general – and we saw darned few birds down there.  We did enjoy the views of wind-swept trees (the winds there are nearly constant and fairly strong), and rolling meadows with lots of horses and cows.  The first two photos below were taken from the western side of Ka Lae, looking south first (showing Ka Lae itself) and then northwest.  We drove down to Ka Lae, where there was a crowd atop the 50' bluffs.  I parked and got out for the short walk down to the bluff tops while Debbie waited in the car, as it was a bit too rugged for her.  I wanted to see the hoist that I remembered, that would haul boats in or out of the water there.  They were gone, and a fisherman there told me that had been done years ago because people were getting hurt or even killed using them.  The people swarming the bluffs were mostly families, picnicking or fishing, and a few tourists gawking – except for one thirty-something Japanese woman that I shan't soon forget.  She was accompanied by a professional photographer and the normal suite of equipment for outdoor portraiture: reflectors, flashes, color meters, a Nikon camera and a big honking lens.  She was sitting on the bluff top, just inches from the edge, posing for photos, with people on both sides of her.  Most striking of all: she wore a pair of skimpy shorts, and nothing else, unless you count the bright blue paint on her nipples and her cherry red lipstick.  Lots of people were watching, but nobody seemed to be offended.  Interesting.  The main question I have is why the blue nipple-paint?  The last photo below shows the remaining field of wind turbines.  The last time we were here was something like 20 years ago, and at that time there was a vast field of wind turbines – at least 100 of them, maybe more.  Now just these few!  What happened?  Well, the same fisherman I mentioned earlier told me that the original owner of those turbines went bankrupt, and the turbines fell into disrepair.  Some burned up, and a couple even fell over.  There was a big flapadoodle, and eventually the state levied a sales tax surcharge to raise the funds to demolish them.  As you drive down to Ka Lae, you'll pass the boneyard of the parts they tore down, including many sections of the large-diameter steel support shafts that held up the turbines themselves.  An epic green fail, it seems...

By this time Debbie and I were hungry, so we headed back north to Na'alehu and the restaurant she'd picked out: Hana Hou, the southernmost restaurant in the U.S.  As we walked in, delicious aromas wafted all around us, and we noticed that the patrons all appeared to be locals.  Debbie had the Santa Fe quesadilla (stuffed with roast pork and onions), and I had the fish and chips (locally caught ono in panko crumbs, with potatoes and slaw).  Both were excellent, and the portions were generous.  Our waitress was friendly and welcoming.  The whole experience was nice.  And filling. :)

After we were done eating, we planned to head back to our cottage at Hale Ohia.  It was still relatively early, though, so we took some side trips along the way hoping to see a few more birds.  The first few attempts we made were complete duds, but then we hit the freaking jackpot.  First we turned off State 11 onto an unnamed road (that's not even on Google maps) just south of mile marker 54.  This road meandered through beautiful macadamia nut orchards with stretches of forest interleaved, until it ended up just outside of the town of Pahala, where it intersected Maile Street.  We saw lots of birds along that road, and also lots of flowers.  Then we meandered a bit until we spotted Cane Haul Road on the map.  That road, much to our surprise, was paved all the way back to Na'alehu, twelve miles or so away.  It's an alternate route to State 11 that we didn't even know existed, despite all the many times we've visited and explored here!  And, more to the point, it is vastly more beautiful – high enough to be in areas that get rain, so the trees and the understory plants were dense and lush.  On the Pahala side we passed though macadamia orchards and coffee plantations; on the Na'alehu side we went through riparian pastures.  Gorgeous!  Plus, bazillions of birds that we couldn't stop to look at because it was getting towards dark.  We ended up in Na'alehu on the same street that Hana Hou was on, right back where we'd started several hours earlier.  We're already making plans to return that that area for an entire day next week, to explore and do some serious birding.  After that, we just high-tailed it for Hale Ohia.  A few photos (more on our next visit there):

Last but certainly not least, our birds.  We spotted many yellow-fronted canaries, several cardinals (both northern and red crested), lots of Japanese white eyes, several saffron finches (those things hurt your eyeballs they're so bright), one pair of akepa, lots of common amakihi and apapane, bazillions of myna, and many kolea.  I had a quality sighting of a bird that's not in our bird book: the size of a house finch, striped brown-and-white mottling on its breast, a chocolate brown back and head, a dark finch beak with black markings all around where the beak meets the head.  Finally, we saw our first nenes of this trip: a pair flying to the east into the Ka'u desert, at dusk.  I could only identify them by their unmistakable goose silhouette, but there are no other geese here so they had to be nenes.

What a great day we had today!