Hawaii

A week of steamy weather, unable to do much at all!  But thats ok - thats what we’re here for.  We’re staying in a small quiet condo complex (Kona Reef Resort) on the outskirts of the Kailua-Kona holiday coast.  Suits us down to the ground.  It’s not 5 star, more 3 star, but its clean, spacious,  air conditioned with a full kitchen and a good balcony overlooking the sea.  No sandy beach, just rocks, and there’s a coral reef perhaps 100m offshore.  But then, there’s no sandy beaches here at all.

The holiday village of Kailua-Kona has a Port Douglas feel about it.

Mostly pub/cafe  type establishments with a spattering of cheap souvenir shops.  Nothing sophisticated about this place!  Although this is quite upmarket for Hawaii (Big Island) we ascertained after hiring a car for a couple of days.

We asked for a small car, but ended up with a Dodge Caravan - a 7 seater people mover!  The only car left in the yard after a cruise ship docked offshore.  The hire agreement was for a “Mystery Hire”, so we got it for the same price as a compact car.  It was certainly very comfortable, but at times somewhat cumbersome around some of the narrow winding roads we encountered.

So this is “The Big Island”, named so for good reason.  We thought 2 days would be plenty to circumnavigate - but we could have done with at least one more day.  It was a full day just to drive south to the volcano region.  Unfortunately we didnt set out until 10.30am after picking up the car.  We read on the map that it was only about 100 miles away.  That’s ok if its a good highway, like the roads we encountered from the airport.  But no - once outside the town limits it was narrow winding roads.  We then fancied stopping off on the way to see a green sanded beach.  Sounded intriguing- but what we were looking at was a “mud map”.  We followed a road by-road for 19 miles, then found out that the green-sanded beach was a further hike down a 2 mile dirt road (which we couldn’t take the car down).  So that was one diversion.  The next one was to be to a black-sanded beach.  But by now it was 1.30 in the afternoon and we still had another one hour drive to Volcano Village, so we were forced into giving that one a miss.

We found the Volcano area fascinating, but also disappointing because the most recent lava flow areas are out of bounds!  Bother!  Nonetheless, the volcanic region is like visiting another planet.

And where the lava flows meet the sea is surreal - had hoped to see steam where the two meet, but there you go - it all stopped being active some time ago.

So that was our first day’s drive.  Didn’t get back to our accommodation until nearly 9pm - slightly knackered.

Our second days drive involved driving across the middle of the island between 2 volcanos to the capital city of Hilo and the more tropical side of the island.

Unbelievably Hilo is the capital of the Hawaiian Islands, nothing like we expected.  We expected something more like Honolulu, but no.  It’s small and unremarkable- didnt hang around there too long.  Um - this is the only picture I found worth taking!

We drove back along the coast for a bit to find tropical scenery more in step with how one imagines the Hawaiian islands.

And we actually caught sight of Hawaii’s national bird: the Nene.  It’s a goose.  And a rather dawdling creature it is too.  There are signs on many roads saying “Nene Xing” - often in desert-like regions too.  “Why don’t they fly?” We often wondered.  Can’t answer that.

They just seemed to saunter along as a lone couple on the side of the road, oblivious to the danger of cars.


And so back to Kona Reef Resort for our final day of relaxation.  A sunset picture of sorts to finish on.

Two days more in Seattle

We travel around the city some, just to get a feel for it.  The first day we take a city tour.  This place is vast: so spread out.  This is very much a very industrious city and port.  Massive container ship port right on the city dockside.  There are roads, bridges and tunnels crisscrossing the city, islands and waterways.  An unusual thing here are FLOATING bridges!  They are literally pontoon bridges across a lake.  

And then of course, they have the headquaters of Amazon, Adobe, Starbucks, Google, Microsoft, T-Mobile, Boing, Bill & Miranda Gates Foundation etc. etc. etc.  Its a city still growing.  We were driven around some very rich suburbs, some pretty poverty stricken ones were’nt even mentioned.  What we also saw, which wasnt talked about: homelessness and drug addicts - far more noticeable than we’re used to seeing, even in other western cities around the world.

There’s the Bayside Freeway that became extremely unstable after an earthquake which has been replaced by a long tunnel that only opened 4 months ago.  The freeway is just a month or so off complete demolition- an amazing task considering its through the middle of the city.

We made use of public transport, especially the Air Link, which is a light rail service (driverless!) between the Airport and the city.  It’s a 45 minute ride costing 2.50 at the most, though we qualify for half price as seniors.  Cheap as chips and very efficient.  We didnt need the buses as our little boutique hotel is centrally located, but there seemed to be plenty of those around.  What we did use was the monorail which runs between the city centre and the Space Needle, one of the biggest tourist attraction in town, (Second behind the markets)

Clean and Safe.




In the city centre we did a foot tour of underground buildings that in their early days would often be submerged by high tides.  Instead of demolishing substantial brick buildings, they chose to build a new road at a higher level, leaving the lower roads and lower parts of buildings underground.

And for our final evening, we joined the queues of thousands to ascend the Space Needle - HAD to be done - cant come to Seattle and not!

We even did the walk on the glass floor.

YES - thats my foot!  Didn’t have to wear embarrassing foot coverings, we needed to dodge the continual glass cleaning man instead.  Which is the cheapest to operate I wonder.



It’s difficult to tell by this picture that we actually had to lay back on glass that was at an angle of about 30 deg - it was rather unnerving, and I feel pretty proud of myself for doing it.

The Space Needle was built for the  1962 World Expo, many of the buildings still exist-   We didnt look at much of it because for the most part (today - a sunny school vacation day) it was packed with families, popcorn vendors and queues.  There was an interesting looking Pop Culture Museum which we might have visited had it not been the end of a long street-bashing touristy day.  Now all we want to do is return to our hotel then find some decent food to boost our energy banks before we travel tomorrow.  Which we managed I may add - thank you MANDY for teaching us how to use our phone to chase the good ones!!  (Oh my, there are some rubbish places around for the uninformed ones!)

Culture shock - Seattle!

Wham!  Bang!  We’re back in the city!  What a contrast!

On our first morning we head down to the docks: a major drawcard being the markets. 

How can this place be so different when its only just over the border from Canada and a 2 hour flight from Alaska.  Oh my!  And our hotel room is like a shoe box!  Still, we found a fantastic cup of coffee this morning so all is forgiven.  In fact Seattle is considered the coffee capital of the world!

We jostled with crowds in the market but on the whole just wanted to get out of there to find a respectable place for lunch.  By keeping our eyes open and following instincts we found “The Pink Door” - a hidden gem:  we were lucky to get a table.  It doesnt need to advertise, its mostly by word of mouth.  Who would have thought that behind this door:

Is this:

The ambience, food and service was a delight - especially after the hamburger and chips experience of Alaska!!!  And yes, the mural on the building wall next door is very risqué.

Ships, planes and sun

And so ... our last morning in Alaska.  The weather so different to our experience of Alaska .  Everyone says this is the exception to the rule.  hot and sunny.  But thats ok.  We’ve stored our luggage at reception and have a few hours left to bask in the views and sun.  Despite there being 4 huge cruise ships in town, we score the best restaurant seats in town.  At a tavern called The Hangar.  We have balcony seats overlooking the water - the ships in harbour and the take-off point for scenic sea plane tours.  It’s incredibly busy, and at times, noisy with plane engines.  Not exactly the remote experience of Alaska that we loved, but a fitting reminder that the only way to reach Juneau is either by sea or air.

Bye bye Alaska - its been great.

Now Juneau, and farewell Alaska

Our final adventure in Alaska: we catch a ferry from Skagway to Juneau.  There are only two ways to get to Juneau - by sea or air.  So we arrive by sea, and will leave tomorrow by air.

We visualized ourselves hauling suitcases across the docks, and heaving them onto the small deck.  But it turned out so much easier.  Our hotel shuttled us and suitcases directly to dockside, and the crew manhandled all the luggage.  Even at the other end in Juneau, we expected to struggle to find our hotel, but all the folk here are so helpful, in this case a bus was laid on to take all passengers downtown, then the driver offered to drop us at the hotel door.  Too simple.  All we had to do was sit back and enjoy the scenery.

And spectacular it was too.  I think when we arrived by cruise ship 3 weeks ago it was night-time, so this is the first time we’ve seen this stretch of water.  It was made more interesting because of the fishing boats.  The salmon are “rising”, and our ferry trip coincided with a 48 hour period the local fishermen are allowed to net “sockeye” in commercial quantities.  The ferry captain had to keep a sharp lookout for netting lines, often zigsagging his course to avoid them.

It was raining of course when we were in Juneau last time, so we were unable to go up the cable car to overlook the town.  Not only did we manage it in the best of conditions this time, but we also did it just before 4 cruise ships docked and spewed out many thousands of passengers - yippee! We nigh on had the place to ourselves.  Different story when we came back down.  Never mind!  We scored.

The bright red building near the marina at about 8 o’clock is our hotel.

There are a lot of things about Alaska we will miss:

The very occasional really nice meal among them!  Juneau, as with most of Alaska has been pub, after pub, all selling the same beers, and virtually identical bar food.  Tonight we found a decent Italian restaurant that sold what they call “Italian pies” (ie pizza’s), tapas and good wine.

Finished the evening off with a sunset stroll back to our hotel.

It was almost warm enough to go in for a swim!!