The Mustang wasn't particularly in the plan. Turtle Bay is a self-contained resort, with championship golf courses, restaurants, beaches, surf schools. The idea is that you turn up, get pampered something rotten and never, ever leave the confines of the resort until it is time to go home.
This is probably the very antithesis of how Caroline and I travel, we aren't tourists, we are professional travellers. But to be honest, after a couple of weeks of catering for ourselves, the idea of having someone on hand to sort out every whim was damned attractive and it is, after all, our honeymoon.
So to have to spend the day out of the resort was disappointing. Instead of lazing on the beach, we had to go back to Waikiki to pick up the now repaired bag. No choice but to jump in the Mustang and head south this time by the scenic route.
We are so glad we did, as we managed to see a wonderful little place that we would not have known about if it hadn't been for Kenn on the tour.
The Valley of the Temples is possibly the prettiest cemetary in the world. The area contains graves of all denominations, along with a Catholic Church and the astonishing Byodo-in Buddhist Temple. This temple celebrates 100 years of Japanese people in the Hawaiian islands. It was built in 1969 as a replica of a temple in Japan and despite its size was constructed of wood and entirely without nails.
It has to be the most serene and peaceful place I have ever been in. The quiet is only broken by the occasional tolling of a massive bell, rung by the visitors to announce their presence. From there, you walk slowly to the temple itself, removing your shoes at the entrance. Inside, there is a massive Buddha (the largest made in recent times apparently) to look at. Although I am not particularly religious - although with its "live and let live" philosophy Buddhism is as close to my own outlook on life as religion gets - it is impossible not to find an inner peace and reflection.
On exiting the temple, there is a small shop across a bridge. The bridge is crowded with birds above and huge koi carp in the lake below. The reason is quickly clear - the shop sells fish and bird food for $1 and they have learned to come down and eat directly from your hand. In fact, hold out a handful of food and they will land on your head, your arm or each other in order to get fed.
From there it was back to Waikiki to pick up the now repaired suitcase. It was nearly 5pm once we had got done so we thought we would try to grab a quick view of Diamond Head, the big crater at the end of Waikiki Beach. We drove through the tunnel into the crater, up to the entrance booth and got a very impolite "We're closed!". Despite the signs clearly showing closing at 6pm. Tcha. Still, this meant we could head towards Sandy Beach and watch the surfers and swimmers before heading back north.
Saturday, 10 May 2008
Tuesday, 6 May 2008
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.
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.
Monday, 5 May 2008
Day 11 - Island Drive
Early start after yesterdays volcano watching. The aim was to circle as much of the Big Island as we could, using the Hawaii Belt Road to go past the South Point and round to Kona. Driving in such an open place is a little odd - I've got a 4WD with a 4.6 litre V8 engine and the thing is forced to trundle around at a speed limit obeying 45mph and 35mph. It seemed to be a waste of time and incredibly frustrating, especialy when presented with a four or five mile pice of road so straight it would mae the Roman army proud.
South Point wasn't all that much, a twelve mile drive down a one lane paved road to the most southerly point in the US. The Point itself is a good, if very windy fishing spot. The only real thing there is the remnants of landing platforms for the loads of fish brought by the boats. Remarkable, as the platforms and ladders must have been 100 feet high given the height of the cliffs and the climb down in the gusting winds would have been interesting to say the least.
We also passed a decrepit, abandoned wind farm. I'm trying to find ot more about the place, as it had a large number of wind turbines seemingly left to just rust. A couple would still turn lazily, others were missing entire vanes. When was it built? Why was it just abandoned? Why not just demolish it properly?
Onward to Kona. The Big Island has a split personality. The side where we were staying is the "wet" side", Kona is on the dry side. This is because the sheer bulk of Mauna Loa and the height of Mauna Kea prevent much of the clouds from crossing to Kona and dump their water on Hilo. So the western side of Big Island is much more touristy.
Before you get to Kona you do pass through coffee country. I don't drink the stuff, but the sheer gorgeous smell of the coffee accompanied us on the drive to a small place called The Painted Church. This is a wooden church set on a hill above the sea, built and decorated in the late 1800s by just one man. When I say "decorated", the priest painted some stunning murals inside, depicting various stories in the Bible - the most impressive of which was one of Jesus rejecting the Devil. As a sheer labour of love, combined with an impressive work of art, The Painted Church deserves a visit. Reminded me greatly of the similar Italian Chapel on Orkney which is another triumph of the human spirit in adversity.
By the time we got to Kona, it was clear it was a bit too much on the commercial side. The views were excellent and we drove by the resort past all the beachfront hotels. Reminded me of Waikiki but without the designer labels. Quite thankful we chose Volcano and not Kona as our base for the Big Island - I got the impression that in Hilo and Volcano, they just quietly go about their business of everyday life and hope that the tourists in Kona don't notice them.
One thing we did like was on the drive out of Kona, past the airport. The road is long, straight and through a valley of black lava, dotted with small white rocks. The side of the road has become a sort of text message alley, where people arrange the rocks to leave a message which may brighten a commuters day. Some are declarations of love, some wishes for happy birthday or anniversaries, some a memorial to a friend. There must be hundreds or thousands of individual messages along this stretch of road and it must be a cheerful drive through every day.
South Point wasn't all that much, a twelve mile drive down a one lane paved road to the most southerly point in the US. The Point itself is a good, if very windy fishing spot. The only real thing there is the remnants of landing platforms for the loads of fish brought by the boats. Remarkable, as the platforms and ladders must have been 100 feet high given the height of the cliffs and the climb down in the gusting winds would have been interesting to say the least.
We also passed a decrepit, abandoned wind farm. I'm trying to find ot more about the place, as it had a large number of wind turbines seemingly left to just rust. A couple would still turn lazily, others were missing entire vanes. When was it built? Why was it just abandoned? Why not just demolish it properly?
Onward to Kona. The Big Island has a split personality. The side where we were staying is the "wet" side", Kona is on the dry side. This is because the sheer bulk of Mauna Loa and the height of Mauna Kea prevent much of the clouds from crossing to Kona and dump their water on Hilo. So the western side of Big Island is much more touristy.
Before you get to Kona you do pass through coffee country. I don't drink the stuff, but the sheer gorgeous smell of the coffee accompanied us on the drive to a small place called The Painted Church. This is a wooden church set on a hill above the sea, built and decorated in the late 1800s by just one man. When I say "decorated", the priest painted some stunning murals inside, depicting various stories in the Bible - the most impressive of which was one of Jesus rejecting the Devil. As a sheer labour of love, combined with an impressive work of art, The Painted Church deserves a visit. Reminded me greatly of the similar Italian Chapel on Orkney which is another triumph of the human spirit in adversity.
By the time we got to Kona, it was clear it was a bit too much on the commercial side. The views were excellent and we drove by the resort past all the beachfront hotels. Reminded me of Waikiki but without the designer labels. Quite thankful we chose Volcano and not Kona as our base for the Big Island - I got the impression that in Hilo and Volcano, they just quietly go about their business of everyday life and hope that the tourists in Kona don't notice them.
One thing we did like was on the drive out of Kona, past the airport. The road is long, straight and through a valley of black lava, dotted with small white rocks. The side of the road has become a sort of text message alley, where people arrange the rocks to leave a message which may brighten a commuters day. Some are declarations of love, some wishes for happy birthday or anniversaries, some a memorial to a friend. There must be hundreds or thousands of individual messages along this stretch of road and it must be a cheerful drive through every day.
Sunday, 4 May 2008
Scream if you want to go faster
I mentioned California Screamin'. Well, here is the launch. 0-55mph in 4 seconds, fired 250 feet down the track and then up and over a 120 foot high hill.
Day 10 - "You've got to throw it in there, Mr Frodo!"
If yesterday was my specialist interest, then today was Carolines. We were staying in Volcano village, a mile or two outside the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. The Park is home to several volcanoes, including Kilauea which has erupted continuously since the early 1980s.
The UK is quite lucky in that it really doesn't have weather or geology that the rest of the world has to deal with. We don't have extremes of cold or heat, high mountains or earthquakes. Therefore, when you get presented with some Real Live Geography, it can be difficult to comprehend or even describe.
We were lucky in our timing, as one of the craters that form Kilauea, the Halema'uma'u had started smoking quite actively. When I say Kilauea had been erupting, I don't mean firing great gobbets of lava a thousand feet into the sky, the lava is elsewhere. Instead, the crater has been emitting tons of volcanic gases into the sky. Normally it just smokes quietly to itself, throwing out gas, including about 20 tons of sulphur dioxide a day. When the wind blows this emission over the land, the locals called it volcanic smog or "vog". Now more active, Halema'uma'u was pouring over 1500 tons of SO2 into the atmosphere and if the wind was in the wrong direction, the vog would cover Volcano village. As we were in Waikiki, we saw reports that due to the northern tradewinds dying out before switching to a southerly direction for the next few months, the vog was settling over Volcano, the park was closed and residents advised to stay inside.
Thankfully the winds had picked up when we arrived and the gas was being blown SE, forcing the closure of a large part of the Crater Rim Drive but giving some perfect views of the crater from the Jagger Museum.
To witness the sheer pent up power of a volcano is an unforgettable sight. The hole blasted in the side of the crater is only 35 metres wide, yet it was pumping gas out at a huge rate and forming spectacular clouds. The trails leading across to the crater were closed, but the museum had provided several sets of telescopes for close up viewing. Inside, you could see the live readouts from the seismic monitors, measuring the contraction and expansion of the very ground beneath your feet - the overall effect was difficult to comprehend as the instruments indicated that the place you were standing on was actually rising. Although Halema'uma'u is not spitting out lava, it was only 2km below the surface.
That one volcano is just a small part of the park. Along with steam vents (where rainwater is pushed back above ground by the heat) and sulphur banks, there is the Thurston Lava Tube. A lava tube is a sort of tunnel through which the molten lava flows. The Lava Tube is about 300m long and lit so that you can walk through. You might think that an underground cave would be quite small, but in places the tube is 21ft high and never less than about 12ft. To stand in the tube and imagine the sheer amount of liquid rock that must have flowed through there is mind boggling.
You get to the Lava Tube down the Chain of Craters Road. This is the old Highway 130, passing the craters of many past volcanoes, leaving behind huge 600ft cliffs. Every so often, the road is just surrounded by black rock, the remnants of lava flows from the past 20 or 30 years. Again the sheer scale of the devastation has to be seen to be believed.
We didn't make it to the end of Highway 130 - because as darkness fell, we had to get to the other end of Highway 130. Which sounds confusing until I explain that in the 1980s, a particular eruption of Kilauea flowed right across Highway 130, splitting it into two. Repair was impossible as it wiped out about 10 miles of road, as well as an entire town called Kapalana.
I mentioned that Kilauea is still erupting - this is evidenced by the activity at Kalapana. Lava is flowing along lava tubes for about 10 miles or so until it hits, quite literally, the Pacific Ocean. At Kalapana you can walk across the old lava field until about two miles distance where at night, you can see the red hot glow and steam of lava meeting water.
One of the most explosive combinations possible is something super hot hitting water, especially if the water has nowhere to go. For example, when the Space Shuttle lifts off, there are huge plumes of smoke and steam. This is from the water below the launch pad - the rocket exhaust instantly turns the water to steam which then blasts outwards.
The Halema'uma'u crater is a creation of lava hitting water. The area was regularly a lake of molten lava that would rise and fall like the water level in a sink. Eventually the lava fell through the bottom of basin onto water collected below. The resulting explosion created the Halema'uma'u crater, some 200 feet deep and over a quarter of a mile across. Rocks were found four miles away. That is the sort of explosive power of a volcano, and Kilauea isn't even a big volcano.
The drive to Kalapana is much trickier than the Saddle Road and I was grateful to be in a 4WD. At the 22 mile marker, the road literally stops. The lava flowed directly across Highway 130, destroying everything, including the town. (There are stories of the residents throwing propane tanks in front of their houses. They were not insured for volcano damage, but they were insured for fire. If they could get the tanks to ignite the house before the lava took it, they could make a claim.)
The drive across the lava is at least two miles, before you get to a car park. The attendants check you have water, a flashlight and decent footwear for the mile walk to the viewing area. People without lights or wearing sandals are not allowed. The walk is comparatively tricky, stepping across cracks and around boulders and the absolute darkness doesn't help.
Eventually we reached the shoreline and turned off the lights. There is no mistaking where you are supposed to look - the only thing in the pitch black darkness is the red glow in the distance. As you get accustomed to the view, you pick out individual plumes of steam as three or four active tubes vent directly into the Pacific.
The sight is more spectacularly as the lava drops ten or more feet into the water. I could pick out not only the steam but occasionally lava itself, spat back by the reaction against the water. Given the distance from the site, I cannot begin to work out how big those chunks of rock must be in order for me to see them from two miles away.
This is the process of building land, as Kilueaa has created 200 acres of new land in 20 years. If you ever want to feel insignificant, to put the problems of the world into perspective, go watch a volcano busy creating an entire country.
The UK is quite lucky in that it really doesn't have weather or geology that the rest of the world has to deal with. We don't have extremes of cold or heat, high mountains or earthquakes. Therefore, when you get presented with some Real Live Geography, it can be difficult to comprehend or even describe.
We were lucky in our timing, as one of the craters that form Kilauea, the Halema'uma'u had started smoking quite actively. When I say Kilauea had been erupting, I don't mean firing great gobbets of lava a thousand feet into the sky, the lava is elsewhere. Instead, the crater has been emitting tons of volcanic gases into the sky. Normally it just smokes quietly to itself, throwing out gas, including about 20 tons of sulphur dioxide a day. When the wind blows this emission over the land, the locals called it volcanic smog or "vog". Now more active, Halema'uma'u was pouring over 1500 tons of SO2 into the atmosphere and if the wind was in the wrong direction, the vog would cover Volcano village. As we were in Waikiki, we saw reports that due to the northern tradewinds dying out before switching to a southerly direction for the next few months, the vog was settling over Volcano, the park was closed and residents advised to stay inside.
Thankfully the winds had picked up when we arrived and the gas was being blown SE, forcing the closure of a large part of the Crater Rim Drive but giving some perfect views of the crater from the Jagger Museum.
To witness the sheer pent up power of a volcano is an unforgettable sight. The hole blasted in the side of the crater is only 35 metres wide, yet it was pumping gas out at a huge rate and forming spectacular clouds. The trails leading across to the crater were closed, but the museum had provided several sets of telescopes for close up viewing. Inside, you could see the live readouts from the seismic monitors, measuring the contraction and expansion of the very ground beneath your feet - the overall effect was difficult to comprehend as the instruments indicated that the place you were standing on was actually rising. Although Halema'uma'u is not spitting out lava, it was only 2km below the surface.
That one volcano is just a small part of the park. Along with steam vents (where rainwater is pushed back above ground by the heat) and sulphur banks, there is the Thurston Lava Tube. A lava tube is a sort of tunnel through which the molten lava flows. The Lava Tube is about 300m long and lit so that you can walk through. You might think that an underground cave would be quite small, but in places the tube is 21ft high and never less than about 12ft. To stand in the tube and imagine the sheer amount of liquid rock that must have flowed through there is mind boggling.
You get to the Lava Tube down the Chain of Craters Road. This is the old Highway 130, passing the craters of many past volcanoes, leaving behind huge 600ft cliffs. Every so often, the road is just surrounded by black rock, the remnants of lava flows from the past 20 or 30 years. Again the sheer scale of the devastation has to be seen to be believed.
We didn't make it to the end of Highway 130 - because as darkness fell, we had to get to the other end of Highway 130. Which sounds confusing until I explain that in the 1980s, a particular eruption of Kilauea flowed right across Highway 130, splitting it into two. Repair was impossible as it wiped out about 10 miles of road, as well as an entire town called Kapalana.
I mentioned that Kilauea is still erupting - this is evidenced by the activity at Kalapana. Lava is flowing along lava tubes for about 10 miles or so until it hits, quite literally, the Pacific Ocean. At Kalapana you can walk across the old lava field until about two miles distance where at night, you can see the red hot glow and steam of lava meeting water.
One of the most explosive combinations possible is something super hot hitting water, especially if the water has nowhere to go. For example, when the Space Shuttle lifts off, there are huge plumes of smoke and steam. This is from the water below the launch pad - the rocket exhaust instantly turns the water to steam which then blasts outwards.
The Halema'uma'u crater is a creation of lava hitting water. The area was regularly a lake of molten lava that would rise and fall like the water level in a sink. Eventually the lava fell through the bottom of basin onto water collected below. The resulting explosion created the Halema'uma'u crater, some 200 feet deep and over a quarter of a mile across. Rocks were found four miles away. That is the sort of explosive power of a volcano, and Kilauea isn't even a big volcano.
The drive to Kalapana is much trickier than the Saddle Road and I was grateful to be in a 4WD. At the 22 mile marker, the road literally stops. The lava flowed directly across Highway 130, destroying everything, including the town. (There are stories of the residents throwing propane tanks in front of their houses. They were not insured for volcano damage, but they were insured for fire. If they could get the tanks to ignite the house before the lava took it, they could make a claim.)
The drive across the lava is at least two miles, before you get to a car park. The attendants check you have water, a flashlight and decent footwear for the mile walk to the viewing area. People without lights or wearing sandals are not allowed. The walk is comparatively tricky, stepping across cracks and around boulders and the absolute darkness doesn't help.
Eventually we reached the shoreline and turned off the lights. There is no mistaking where you are supposed to look - the only thing in the pitch black darkness is the red glow in the distance. As you get accustomed to the view, you pick out individual plumes of steam as three or four active tubes vent directly into the Pacific.
The sight is more spectacularly as the lava drops ten or more feet into the water. I could pick out not only the steam but occasionally lava itself, spat back by the reaction against the water. Given the distance from the site, I cannot begin to work out how big those chunks of rock must be in order for me to see them from two miles away.
This is the process of building land, as Kilueaa has created 200 acres of new land in 20 years. If you ever want to feel insignificant, to put the problems of the world into perspective, go watch a volcano busy creating an entire country.
Thursday, 1 May 2008
Day 9 - Top of the World
I was 7 when I decided I wanted to go to Mauna Kea. I saw the place on an old TV show called Arthur C Clarkes Mysterious World, whch was about all the odd things like the Yeti, UFOs and all that sort of stuff that fascinates a young mind. This particular show was about this huge mountain that was quickly becoming home to all sort of neat telescopes, staring out and exploring the universe.
I mentioned the elevation at Volcano, 4000 feet above sea level. To get to the top of Mauna Kea, you must take the Saddle Road - a thin strip of tarmac that crosses the Big Island from East to North West, between Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa.
(Digression - Measured from its base, Mauna Loa is the tallest mountain on the planet. A total of about 32,000 feet tall (3,000 more than Everest) but with two-thirds of its massive bulk underwater. Mauna Loa is also still an active volcano, yet the sheer size of the thing means it is actually getting lower, collapsing under its own weight.)
The Saddle Road and the trip to the observatories was the reason we hired a 4WD. Only one car rental company allows its vehicles up the Saddle Road and off to the summit. In fact, most rental companies specifically ban the use of their cars on that road.
It is a 26 mile drive from Hilo to the observatory turnoff and to be honest, I couldn't see the need for a 4WD. Although the road continuously climbs to 6,600 feet, it was no more challenging than a drive through the Lake District. We kept up a speed of about 40mph, until hitting mile marker 19, where the road was undergoing nearly 20 miles of resurfacing and realignment. Even though it was unpaved, even then I would have been quite happy to put my little Skoda on the road.
Upon reaching the highest point of the Saddle Road, time to turn off. People are advised to make a stop en route, at the Ellison Onizuka Visitor Information Station. Six miles from the Saddle Road, but crucially, 9,000 feet elevation. So by the time you reach the VIS, you are two Ben Nevis' above sea level.
The VIS, named after a Hawaii astronaut who died in the Challenger disaster, is a stopoff for star gazing, information about Mauna Kea itself, a rest halt and a starting point for Summit Tours. Although it is possible to drive to the summit yourself, each day there is an organised Summit Tour, where an astronomer shows you a film about Mauna Kea and then a couple of Park Rangers lead a convoy to the summit.
The film is about an hour long and has a strong emphasis on the importance of Mauna Kea to the Hawaiians. Effectively, it is the Mount Olympus of their culture, the home of the Gods. There has been, and continues to be, much conflict between the Hawaiians and the astronomers - the latter have found the perfect place on the entire planet to peer out into the skies.
This is because of a combination of factors. The summit is easily accessible and there is very little light pollution from below. It is above a tropical inversion layer, above the clouds which means very little interference from the weather for 300 or so days each year. The islands position on the planet affords a great view of 70% of the sky.
There is a second reason for the film - it forces your body to acclimatise to the height. The VIS is at 9,000 feet but the summit is a further 6 miles and 4,700 feet, another Ben Nevis worth. At the full height of 13,776 feet, there is 40% less oxygen in the air than you are used to. At that height, your body is effectively starved of oxygen and water - technically, you are dying very slowly. It has some... interesting effects.
After watching the film and picking up some bits and pieces at the shop, it was time to join the convoy to the summit. The journey took about 25 minutes and yes, you do need a 4x4 to get to the top. Nt because the road is tricky - it is mostly gravel all the way - but mainly because at the altitude, a 4WD generally has an engine with enough grunt to make it up the steep inclines.
Caroline and I are travellers, we aren't tourists. There is a difference. Travellers, when faced with something like Mauna Kea, do their research. They find out about the restriction on hire cars, they realise that at 14,000 feet, it might be a bit nippy and plan accordingly.
Tourists take any old car to the VIS. They arrive in sandals and shorts. They grumble and then spend lots of money in the shop buying warm clothing. They grumble about having to sit through the film. They have to cadge a lift to the summit because their hire car is banned and uninsured anyway.
In this case, the tourist was from the UK and really, really pissed me off.
Anyway, unlike people who travel up on their own, as part of an organised tour by the park, we were allowed into the W.M Keck Observatory, the newest of the telescopes at the summit. The technology involved in all of the telescopes was quite mind boggling in places - some of them have mirrors almost 10 metres wide, but the Keck 'scopes (for there are two identical setups) are a group of hexagons, about 1 metre each which fit together to form one big mirror. The advantage to this is that if there is an imperfection then you don't have to fix the entire thing, you just remove a panel and replace it. A second benefit that even on an object so comparatively small, gravity bends the mirrors slightly, and the computers can adjust the segments twice a second.
Mind boggling number time. The mirrors are so perfectly smooth that if they were the size of the Earth, then the largest bump would be just two feet high. We're talking molecules of height imperfection. The mirror arrangement weighs 270 tons, yet is so perfectly balanced that if the drive motors were switched off, you could move the whole assembly around with just one hand.
I mentioned the side effects of the altitude - the summit isn't an easy place to be. The temperature is about freezing both outside and inside the domes (the air temperature is matched to reduce turbulence in front of the mirrors). The lack of oxygen makes you feel slightly woozy. You yawn a lot and are advised to bend your knees - you may suddenly keel over. Simple memory is difficult - our tour guide introduced himself as Don, when he was actually called Josh. Don was the Park Ranger in charge of the group, when asked how the astronomers coped with up to 14 hour shifts overnight, he simply said "natural selection - either you can handle it, or you can't. And you never know until you try."
Caroline was pretty badly affected by the altitude. I took some time, was pretty uncomfortable for about 15 minutes and then got my bearings a bit. Combined with this and the cloud rolling over the summit meant we weren't going to hang around for the sunset. Usually the sunset is pretty spectacular, with the clouds a thousand feet below you and only the stars above - my luck wasn't in, this was going to be a cloudy night. So we walked around the outside of the domes and had a look around.
Next to the Keck Observatory is the Subaru telescope. There is a very odd thing about this scope - I mentioned air turbulence before. The movement of air makes visibility quite difficult, it is moving air that makes stars twinkle when you look at them. Obviously when you are peering through the universe, this local blurring can be a problem. The computers recalibrate the images thousands of times per second to compensate. The way Subaru does this is to send an audible sonar whistle through the air - standing next to it you keep hearing pulses of beeps going up and down the scales. The computers measure the pulses and calculate the adjustments. A very neat solution to the problem but very eerie to stand there and listen to.
We began the journey back down while the light was half decent, stopping for Caroline to take photos which will hopefully turn out OK. The geology of Mauna Kea is as impressive as the science at the top - lots of snow tipped volcanic cinder cones, lava flows and odd plateaus. You can understand why NASA trained its astronauts for moon landings in such a landscape.
Night fell quickly as we hit the Saddle Road. A final number for you. On the journey down, admittedly in a big heavy 4x4, I decided to just use momentum and the brakes to keep the car going. It was a sort of game I occasionally do to keep myself alert on a tricky road - how far can you get without needing to accelerate.
From the start point to when I finally had to press the gas pedal to accelerate away from a set of traffic lights was eighteen miles.
I mentioned the elevation at Volcano, 4000 feet above sea level. To get to the top of Mauna Kea, you must take the Saddle Road - a thin strip of tarmac that crosses the Big Island from East to North West, between Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa.
(Digression - Measured from its base, Mauna Loa is the tallest mountain on the planet. A total of about 32,000 feet tall (3,000 more than Everest) but with two-thirds of its massive bulk underwater. Mauna Loa is also still an active volcano, yet the sheer size of the thing means it is actually getting lower, collapsing under its own weight.)
The Saddle Road and the trip to the observatories was the reason we hired a 4WD. Only one car rental company allows its vehicles up the Saddle Road and off to the summit. In fact, most rental companies specifically ban the use of their cars on that road.
It is a 26 mile drive from Hilo to the observatory turnoff and to be honest, I couldn't see the need for a 4WD. Although the road continuously climbs to 6,600 feet, it was no more challenging than a drive through the Lake District. We kept up a speed of about 40mph, until hitting mile marker 19, where the road was undergoing nearly 20 miles of resurfacing and realignment. Even though it was unpaved, even then I would have been quite happy to put my little Skoda on the road.
Upon reaching the highest point of the Saddle Road, time to turn off. People are advised to make a stop en route, at the Ellison Onizuka Visitor Information Station. Six miles from the Saddle Road, but crucially, 9,000 feet elevation. So by the time you reach the VIS, you are two Ben Nevis' above sea level.
The VIS, named after a Hawaii astronaut who died in the Challenger disaster, is a stopoff for star gazing, information about Mauna Kea itself, a rest halt and a starting point for Summit Tours. Although it is possible to drive to the summit yourself, each day there is an organised Summit Tour, where an astronomer shows you a film about Mauna Kea and then a couple of Park Rangers lead a convoy to the summit.
The film is about an hour long and has a strong emphasis on the importance of Mauna Kea to the Hawaiians. Effectively, it is the Mount Olympus of their culture, the home of the Gods. There has been, and continues to be, much conflict between the Hawaiians and the astronomers - the latter have found the perfect place on the entire planet to peer out into the skies.
This is because of a combination of factors. The summit is easily accessible and there is very little light pollution from below. It is above a tropical inversion layer, above the clouds which means very little interference from the weather for 300 or so days each year. The islands position on the planet affords a great view of 70% of the sky.
There is a second reason for the film - it forces your body to acclimatise to the height. The VIS is at 9,000 feet but the summit is a further 6 miles and 4,700 feet, another Ben Nevis worth. At the full height of 13,776 feet, there is 40% less oxygen in the air than you are used to. At that height, your body is effectively starved of oxygen and water - technically, you are dying very slowly. It has some... interesting effects.
After watching the film and picking up some bits and pieces at the shop, it was time to join the convoy to the summit. The journey took about 25 minutes and yes, you do need a 4x4 to get to the top. Nt because the road is tricky - it is mostly gravel all the way - but mainly because at the altitude, a 4WD generally has an engine with enough grunt to make it up the steep inclines.
Caroline and I are travellers, we aren't tourists. There is a difference. Travellers, when faced with something like Mauna Kea, do their research. They find out about the restriction on hire cars, they realise that at 14,000 feet, it might be a bit nippy and plan accordingly.
Tourists take any old car to the VIS. They arrive in sandals and shorts. They grumble and then spend lots of money in the shop buying warm clothing. They grumble about having to sit through the film. They have to cadge a lift to the summit because their hire car is banned and uninsured anyway.
In this case, the tourist was from the UK and really, really pissed me off.
Anyway, unlike people who travel up on their own, as part of an organised tour by the park, we were allowed into the W.M Keck Observatory, the newest of the telescopes at the summit. The technology involved in all of the telescopes was quite mind boggling in places - some of them have mirrors almost 10 metres wide, but the Keck 'scopes (for there are two identical setups) are a group of hexagons, about 1 metre each which fit together to form one big mirror. The advantage to this is that if there is an imperfection then you don't have to fix the entire thing, you just remove a panel and replace it. A second benefit that even on an object so comparatively small, gravity bends the mirrors slightly, and the computers can adjust the segments twice a second.
Mind boggling number time. The mirrors are so perfectly smooth that if they were the size of the Earth, then the largest bump would be just two feet high. We're talking molecules of height imperfection. The mirror arrangement weighs 270 tons, yet is so perfectly balanced that if the drive motors were switched off, you could move the whole assembly around with just one hand.
I mentioned the side effects of the altitude - the summit isn't an easy place to be. The temperature is about freezing both outside and inside the domes (the air temperature is matched to reduce turbulence in front of the mirrors). The lack of oxygen makes you feel slightly woozy. You yawn a lot and are advised to bend your knees - you may suddenly keel over. Simple memory is difficult - our tour guide introduced himself as Don, when he was actually called Josh. Don was the Park Ranger in charge of the group, when asked how the astronomers coped with up to 14 hour shifts overnight, he simply said "natural selection - either you can handle it, or you can't. And you never know until you try."
Caroline was pretty badly affected by the altitude. I took some time, was pretty uncomfortable for about 15 minutes and then got my bearings a bit. Combined with this and the cloud rolling over the summit meant we weren't going to hang around for the sunset. Usually the sunset is pretty spectacular, with the clouds a thousand feet below you and only the stars above - my luck wasn't in, this was going to be a cloudy night. So we walked around the outside of the domes and had a look around.
Next to the Keck Observatory is the Subaru telescope. There is a very odd thing about this scope - I mentioned air turbulence before. The movement of air makes visibility quite difficult, it is moving air that makes stars twinkle when you look at them. Obviously when you are peering through the universe, this local blurring can be a problem. The computers recalibrate the images thousands of times per second to compensate. The way Subaru does this is to send an audible sonar whistle through the air - standing next to it you keep hearing pulses of beeps going up and down the scales. The computers measure the pulses and calculate the adjustments. A very neat solution to the problem but very eerie to stand there and listen to.
We began the journey back down while the light was half decent, stopping for Caroline to take photos which will hopefully turn out OK. The geology of Mauna Kea is as impressive as the science at the top - lots of snow tipped volcanic cinder cones, lava flows and odd plateaus. You can understand why NASA trained its astronauts for moon landings in such a landscape.
Night fell quickly as we hit the Saddle Road. A final number for you. On the journey down, admittedly in a big heavy 4x4, I decided to just use momentum and the brakes to keep the car going. It was a sort of game I occasionally do to keep myself alert on a tricky road - how far can you get without needing to accelerate.
From the start point to when I finally had to press the gas pedal to accelerate away from a set of traffic lights was eighteen miles.
Monday, 28 April 2008
Day 8 - No Go!
Honolulu - Hilo
Supposed to be a bit of a nothing day this, as we were to travel to the Big Island. With the demise of Aloha Airlines, we had to quickly rebook flights as we had already paid for car hire and accomodation. The website for Hawaiian Air doesn't accept credit cards from non-US, Canadian or Australian addresses so we had to use Go! Airlines to arrange a flight.
After booking on their website, I picked up the local paper and found a story about two Go! pilots being suspended for falling asleep and overflying Hilo. The article cited many accusations including punishing schedules for the flight crews which made the company sound like the Ryanair of Hawaii.
You can tell where this is going, can't you?
We arrived at Honolulu airport at just past 12 and took advantage of the wonders of curbside checkin. We're down to three heavy bags plus a carryon each making moving stuff a logistical nightmare. The stupid security restrictions don't help and I realised we had left such dangerous items as sunblock and water in carry on luggage -I seem to recall these restrictions being temporary which led to Caroline being advised to decant a ten dollar tube of suncream into a transparent container and then being told she couldn't take it on anyway.
Past the security and into the commuter terminal, which sells those restricted bottles of water BTW and there aren't enough seats especially as many airlines are showing delayed/cancelled. We settled in for an anticipated hour wait, which turned into a little longer, then longer, then the inevitable - our flight was announced as delayed by an hour. To be honest, this wasn't a surprise, as firstly each other Go! flight was delayed and secondly they told us the flight would be delayed 15 minutes after we were due to take off.
We eventually boarded about an hour late. I was getting increasingly tense as I figured we would land at about 4.30, which given our car hire place were closing at 5pm was going to make things a bit tight. My calm wasn't enhanced when staff walked on the plane and removed some passengers who had tickets for a later flight, but then were told they could use this one, but now can't.
Then as we taxiied onto the runway, not from the gate, the runway, the woman next to me started a call on her mobile. It must have been the look on my face that made her stop and not the air of barely supressed menace in my voice.
40 minute flight to Hilo, we're OK for time, just as long as all three bags make it safely to the flight. Off to the carousel and in almost the words of Meatloaf "Two out of Three Are Here". Yep, somehow Go! had managed to lose one of the bags. Caroline had to fill in the forms, while I sorted out the car.
It has been a bit of a yin and yang holiday, for everything that has gone wrong has been balanced out. The lady at the desk at the car hire firm was a wonderful character. A four foot something bundle of laughs called Willa reminded Caroline of Betty out of Ugly Betty. She not only sorted the paperwork, but provided plenty of maps, driving tips and so on.
The Ford Explorer is probably the biggest car I have ever driven and combined with an automatic transmission and driving on the wrong side of the road, I was really grateful that the roads are comparatively quiet on the Big Island.
We are staying in Volcano, about 30 miles from Hilo and by the time we got there the road was completely empty. Thanks to some great instructions, we found the cottage in which we are spending the next few days, unlocked the door and walked into the most completely charming little place. The Volcano Bungalow is a two bedroom place set right in the rainforest, isolated from just about anywhere. The place was already warmed up, with supplies of essentials. Afer the day we had, it took us about two minutes to feel completely at home.
In that 30 mile drive to Volcano, the road climbs and climbs from sea level to an elevation of 4,000 feet. For comparison purposes, Ben Nevis is 4,400 feet high and the next highest mountain in the UK is somewhere about 3,900.
Supposed to be a bit of a nothing day this, as we were to travel to the Big Island. With the demise of Aloha Airlines, we had to quickly rebook flights as we had already paid for car hire and accomodation. The website for Hawaiian Air doesn't accept credit cards from non-US, Canadian or Australian addresses so we had to use Go! Airlines to arrange a flight.
After booking on their website, I picked up the local paper and found a story about two Go! pilots being suspended for falling asleep and overflying Hilo. The article cited many accusations including punishing schedules for the flight crews which made the company sound like the Ryanair of Hawaii.
You can tell where this is going, can't you?
We arrived at Honolulu airport at just past 12 and took advantage of the wonders of curbside checkin. We're down to three heavy bags plus a carryon each making moving stuff a logistical nightmare. The stupid security restrictions don't help and I realised we had left such dangerous items as sunblock and water in carry on luggage -
Past the security and into the commuter terminal, which sells those restricted bottles of water BTW and there aren't enough seats especially as many airlines are showing delayed/cancelled. We settled in for an anticipated hour wait, which turned into a little longer, then longer, then the inevitable - our flight was announced as delayed by an hour. To be honest, this wasn't a surprise, as firstly each other Go! flight was delayed and secondly they told us the flight would be delayed 15 minutes after we were due to take off.
We eventually boarded about an hour late. I was getting increasingly tense as I figured we would land at about 4.30, which given our car hire place were closing at 5pm was going to make things a bit tight. My calm wasn't enhanced when staff walked on the plane and removed some passengers who had tickets for a later flight, but then were told they could use this one, but now can't.
Then as we taxiied onto the runway, not from the gate, the runway, the woman next to me started a call on her mobile. It must have been the look on my face that made her stop and not the air of barely supressed menace in my voice.
40 minute flight to Hilo, we're OK for time, just as long as all three bags make it safely to the flight. Off to the carousel and in almost the words of Meatloaf "Two out of Three Are Here". Yep, somehow Go! had managed to lose one of the bags. Caroline had to fill in the forms, while I sorted out the car.
It has been a bit of a yin and yang holiday, for everything that has gone wrong has been balanced out. The lady at the desk at the car hire firm was a wonderful character. A four foot something bundle of laughs called Willa reminded Caroline of Betty out of Ugly Betty. She not only sorted the paperwork, but provided plenty of maps, driving tips and so on.
The Ford Explorer is probably the biggest car I have ever driven and combined with an automatic transmission and driving on the wrong side of the road, I was really grateful that the roads are comparatively quiet on the Big Island.
We are staying in Volcano, about 30 miles from Hilo and by the time we got there the road was completely empty. Thanks to some great instructions, we found the cottage in which we are spending the next few days, unlocked the door and walked into the most completely charming little place. The Volcano Bungalow is a two bedroom place set right in the rainforest, isolated from just about anywhere. The place was already warmed up, with supplies of essentials. Afer the day we had, it took us about two minutes to feel completely at home.
In that 30 mile drive to Volcano, the road climbs and climbs from sea level to an elevation of 4,000 feet. For comparison purposes, Ben Nevis is 4,400 feet high and the next highest mountain in the UK is somewhere about 3,900.
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