Day 12 and 13 - You say Hilo, we say Goodbye

Combined these two as we spent a couple of days just chilling out and staying local. Yet more Scenery, as visited the Akaka Falls, a 200 foot waterfall. I love just standing and watching waterfalls, I find that the way the water splits and twists on a dramatic drop to the bottom completely mesmerising. Akaka Falls reminded me of one of my favourite spots in upstate New York - Taughannock Falls - in the way that you walk through the undergrowth until you make it to a clearing where the sight just takes the breath away.

Caroline was more than pleased with the walk, as she happily snapped photos of the rainforest. There was the largest bamboo tree I have ever seen - must have been a hundred feet high or so, and about forty feet wide at the base.

Downtown Hilo is an interesting place. Very 1930s, not quite Art Deco but lots of old wooden buildings. This is a little bit of a surprise, as the town was devastated by a tsunami but there still remains much of the character.

Hilo is also the stop off for cruise ships, which take tourists on trips out and past the town. Not quite sure why people would choose to get off a ship and go to a Macadamia Nut factory, but hey, different strokes. We just popped into the place on the way home to pick up some nutty goodness and coffee to send back home. Not that we were being tourists - we had just got a taste of macadamias on the tour a few days ago and this place did the best - Covered in Maui Onion, garlic, chocolate or coffee (no, not all at the same time) they are the sort of thing that you could eat a lot of, very quickly. Rather than take them with us to New Zealand, it is much better to send them home and savour the flavour.

Time to leave the Big Island, with a lot of memories and plenty of unfinished business which is how it should be. I left Caroline at the airport to check in the bags - this time we did get caught over our allowance as we were still down to three bags - and dropped the Explorer off.

I really rather liked that car/truck/SUV. It coped with everything we threw at it and was very, very comfortable in our long journeys. We covered about 900 miles and filled up twice, so despite being quite big and heavy, the slow speeds did help the fuel economy a bit. It is the perfect vehicle for the Big Island though if you buy one at home for the school run, you really do need shooting.

Shared the shuttle back to the airport with a bad tempered US couple, who managed to ask Caroline "So, Mrs Bus Lady Person, when are going to be driving us back to the airport?" which has made me snigger for days.

As is always the way, we had problems getting into Hilo but Go! Airlines were perfect when it comes to leave and we headed the 224 miles back to Honolulu with heavy hearts. We really did fall in love with the Big Island and it lived up to all our hopes and expectations.

Back on Oahu, we headed to the car rental agency. We were to stay at Turtle Bay Resort, the very northernmost point of the island. A taxi would probably be about $70 each way, buses wouldn't carry the heavy bags and we would have to get ourselves back to Waikiki to pick up the bag that was broken last week, so it made financial sense to hire a car. I booked a Focus or equivalent over the net the previous night and then turned up at the desk.

"You have booked a Class C car, we have a special offer on at the moment. For an extra $20 a day, you can upgrade to any of these."

The attendant waved over the list of cars. My eyes never wavered from one particular picture.

"Does that include one of them?"
"Yes, sir."
"Oooh... one of them, then."
"Red, white or blue?"
"Red, please."

And that is how Caroline and I spent a couple of days cruising around Oahu in a gorgeous convertible V8 Ford Mustang. It would have rude not to, really.

Not that practicality came into it - it was tricky to figure out how to pack the five bags we had with us, let alone the one we have to pick up but if I'm offered a V8 Mustang convertible, then I'm bloomin' well going to take it.