Around town-days 13 & 14

As our trip to the Big Island draws to a close, it has been harder to write this on a daily basis.  When we first arrived, Tim stated to me that it seemed like we had been here a long time.  Now it seems like we barely got here and it's time to go.

Today is our last full day on the island.  Tomorrow afternoon we head over to Oahu for a couple of days and then head back home on Saturday. The bad part about leaving from Hawaii (besides the obvious) is the time change.  We leave in the afternoon and get home late Saturday night.

Yesterday, we headed back to the Captain Cook area, not to go snorkeling (heaven forbid!), but to purchase another bag (or 2 or 3) of the "Rock Salt Macnuts" dark chocolate covered whole macadamia nuts with rock salt (from the Kona Farmers' Coop).  The salt just adds that extra push in flavor.  They are really good and we wanted some to take home. But then we saw other things and, what should have been 3 items turned into 6 and ice cream for the 2 of us-sheesh. I also tried some new fruits they had out on their side board:

I don't know why this one showed up sideways.  But I wanted to you to see how tiny this banana is compared to the apricot. I didn't get to try the banana. I guess they figure most bananas taste the same.

Sour! I don't know why so many of these fruits are sour.

 

Named Sour Sop for a reason.  The consistency is really weird also-slimy and hard to pick up. They had made a quick breaed out of it and and banana. It was okay.

After our ice cream, we drove over to St. Benedict's Painted Church in Honaunau.  It is a historical site as well as an active parish. As you walk up, they have a table with various items you can buy.  They go by the honor system with a box at the end of the table for you to deposit your money.  We purchased a little handmade Christmas tree decoration (yes, we deposited the right amount of money).

The outside of the church is painted white.  It's when you step into the church that you get a whole new vista. The present church building was erected in 1899 by Father John Velghe. According to their website, "Without any professional training and using house paint on ordinary wood he beautified the church with his paintings. In those days few Hawaiians could read and so he taught with pictures-most successfully."

The ceiling.

Today (Wednesday) we visited 2 Farmers' Markets. We viewed and reaped the bounties they had to offer:

These are called pin cushion flowers.

This type of pineapple is called a white pineapple.  It's supposed to be acid free and much sweeter than a regular pineapple. We bought one to try later today.  Even if it tasted horrible, the price was was so much better than what we paid for our first from one Safeway-$2 compared to $7! Tim thought they were marked $0.99 but they were $0.99 a pound! And it wasn't even a good one.

We bought a mango to eat for lunch but when we got back to the condo, there was the owner with 2 of his mangoes for us.  Now we've got fruit coming out our ears!

Besides the mangoes, this was waiting for us also:

This is what we see everytime we walk up the breezeway.  Not a bad view.

Flume it! or "It's a Small World After all"-Day 12

Today's activity was very relaxing and fun.  The Big Island has its own "Small World" but it is called the Kohala Ditch System. The ditch is the irrigation system that sugar plantations in the area used to direct water from the valleys to the plains where their crops were planted.  The system is 22.5 miles long with 57 tunnels, 19 flumes, and 6 miles of open ditches.

In 1903, 600 Japanese men were brought over to work on the system (they made between $0.75 up to $1.50 per day). 18 months later and with the loss of 17 lives, the ditch was ready.  The guy who planned the ditch is the same guy who was also responsible for the Hetch-Hetchety project, M.M. O'Shaughnessy.

We begin by checking in (at the same place for the ATV rides) and then climb into another pinzgauer for an off-road excursion up to the launch site in the Kohala Mountains. We get out of the truck and take a short hike over a 150 ft flume to our launching site.

We boarded the kayaks and cruised for 2 1/2 miles through the Hawaiian rainforest, 10 earth tunnels (which have low ceilings and are very dark), and water flumes.



A flume



A ditch

A chinese banyan tree

Tim is the captain of our vessel, I'm in the middle (think Pocahontas), and 1 of our guides is in the back of our kayak.



Launching point.  The water is pretty cold and our guide was standing in it for a while helping everyone into their kayaks.  We had 4 kayaks in our group.  The 2nd guide rode in the 4th kayak.

The 1st of our 10 tunnels. The captain gets to wear a headlight that has about 3 lumens worth of light!



Light at the end of the tunnel.

Our guide was getting a little bit bored so he started bouncing on the end of the kayak to make these big waves which would get the people behind us wet.  One time, he almost hit his head on the ceiling of the tunnel.

Basically, you just float down this ditch for about 1 1/2 hours with a couple of stops to see a waterfall. Actually, we were at the top of the waterfall that Tim and I were at when we went on the ATVs (the one with the big pool).

Not only did the captain have a headlight, he also had a paddle to make sure we didn't run into the ditch walls.  This is Tim demonstrating his technique. (Notice how wet he is?  You do get wet on this activity-though I didn't get as wet until our guides decided to hit their ATV counterparts with a deluge of water as they drove by!)

I dont' know why I keep doing this; it just doesn't look good.

At the top of the waterfall, heading to our next tunnel.  For every 1000 ft we traveled, we would go down only a foot.

The disembarking site where snacks and drinks and our ride home waited for us.





They took us down in ATVs which was to add to the adventure.

This was a fun relaxing activity. Well...at least for me.

On the way home, we stopped at a ancient temple site.  This is where King Kamehameha 1 finally achieved total unification of the islands by killing his rival.  The general public isn't allowed in the temple but religious practicing Hawaiians use it for special gatherings. On this site, there are actually 4 temples (one, dedicated to sharks sunk in the sea years ago) and a royal compound. 

Royal compound area

Somewhere near here is the sunken shark temple

Some museum has the original cape of the King and they have determined that he was probably around 7 ft. tall.  They believe that most early Hawaiians ranged from 7 - 8ft. in length.

This proves that Tim is a manly man. Kane (pronounced caw-nay) means man in Hawaiian.

All day the wind has been blowing something fierce.  The ocean looked like ice because of all the white caps.





Bums

Today(Sunday)we just bummed around. We went to church with the Kona 2nd ward members and listened to the Mission President and his wife speak. He mentioned that there are 2 missionaries on the island of Lanai'i. One is a cowboy from Utah and the other is Filipino-exactly the kind of people who live on the island. There are 2 sets of missionaries on the island of Molokai where 1 out of 7 is a member of the LDS church. I found these little facts to be interesting. We read on our lanai for most of the afternoon and then headed up north to the Kohala Coast for dinner. On the way we stopped at Costco to get gas. Their price is $.60 cheaper than others that we've seen but no lines for gas-go figure. Dinner, as I mentioned on Facebook, was nothing spectacular except for the black sugar ice cream. I think I'm going to have to get some black sugar and experiment with it. Sunset magazine recommended this place (The Canoe House at the Mauna Lani Bay hotel)but I can't figure out why. The location can't be beat but the food was only so-so and pricey. I'm willing to pay, if the food is good. We were at the restaurant for over 2 hours which, for me, is way too long. It dont think it was our server's fault. I think it was the kitchen's. When my food came out-braised short ribs with Gorgonzola polenta & asparagus-the meat was dry and lukewarm, at best. Oh well, tomorrow is another day.

Tidbits

On one of our daytrips, we stopped at an exotic fruit stand and picked up a few fruits to try.  We brought them back to the condo and tried them the next night for dinner.  I thought I would share with you our impressions of them.  Unfortunately, I can't remember all of the names but I do remember their taste.

Dragonfruit (I've seen this is at our SaveMart)

Scoops out just like an avocado. A little bland (with the color being so vivid, I was expecting big sweet flavor) but very juicy.

This gelatinous mess is something called an "apple??" that tastes like vanilla. From the outside it looked like a big plum but the inside texture was nothing like a plum.  It had 2 big seeds surrounded by this mess.  There wasn't that much meat on the inside but what meat there was tasted somewhat like vanilla.



Above is the meat from the "apple thingie" beside the meat from a mango that our condo owner brought us.



On the left, the mango brought to us from the owner.  On the right, one we got at a farmer's market. The small one was good but the larger one was unbelieveably good-sweet and juicy.

Going clockwise starting at the right: dragonfruit, cashew apple, mountain apple, and snake fruit.

Snake fruit (the outside looks like snake skin) has a thin hard outside layer which you peel to reveal a firm light beige meat with one big seed. Kind of tasted like a "rosy" pear. Pretty good.



Very firm flesh (didn't need to peel this one) but doesn't really taste like an apple that we know.  Kind of bland in taste and not very juicy.



This to me was very intriguing. It feels very soft to the touch and got softer sitting in the fridge. The flesh inside is very soft and smelly (not in a good way). Tim took a bite and spit it out.  I tried it.  The taste isn't that bad - not my favorite but if I were starving, I would it eat it but I would have to pinch my nose so I wouldn't have to smell it.

Now to jump to another subject: landscape. When you fly to this island, you immediately wonder where are you because the landscape (especially around the airport) does not look like what you expect Hawaii to look like.  But it is amazing how you can go from this:

to this:



to this:

All 3 landscapes on the same road within 30 minutes of each other.

This is a beautiful island. Very big (thus the BIG Island-4000sq miles) which means a lot of driving to see things but well worth the time and effort.