To Big Island and Beyond

I took a 5 day journey to the big island of Hawaii. I really enjoyed Oahu, but big island seems like prime habitat for a creature like me. It is uncongested (except a tiny part of Kona where the tourists flock), spacious, wild, beautiful, has a pretty good array of endemic flora and fauna that are still hanging in there, and it is growing! Mel was kind enough to work it out with her very gracious friend Steve so that I could stay at his place in Volcano for 5 days while he was out of town. His house was only about 3 mile from the entrance of Volcanoes National Park where I spent two days hiking and checking out the volcanic formations - lava tube caves, craters rims, crater floors, steam vents, successional forests, and distant vents spewing ash and dust (called vog) for miles in whatever direction the wind blew it. Although I tried 3 times, I never did get to see any molten lava, the wind was always wrong for it. I guess I need to leave something to come back for. I did, however, manage to see Hawaii's state bird the nene - it is a really cool goose that doesn't understand that being run over by cars can be detrimental to efforts of genetic persistence both for individuals and the entire species. I saw them in the road and it took me 10 minutes of very gentle coaxing to get them off to the side so I could pass.
I also headed down to South Point (the southern-most point of the US) which looks like the edge of the world. It has ~30ft. high cliffs that plunge into deep blue water teeming with fish and coral. Up the road a bit I stopped at a black sand beach. They form when lava flowing into the ocean shatters from the fast temperature change. There were hawk's bill sea turtles hanging out in the shallow water half submerged among the rocks. Northwest of these, I visited Honaunau or Place of Refuge. It is a culturally important site because it is an area where several generations of royalty hung out and it there was a large area that was designated as blood-shed free. Old Hawaiian law (Kapu) was really strict and a commoner could be killed for doing things like eating a meal with the opposite gender etc. This place of refuge was the only chance a commoner got to redeem him/herself. If they could make it to Honaunau before they were captured and killed, they could get their infraction excused by a priest there and they would subsequently be able to go home. Pretty crazy huh!? This place has soom very nicely reconstructed traditional buildings and carved statues...it also has a tiny beach with green turtles and an exceptionally good area for snorkeling.
From there I headed up to Kona to do an afternoon and night dive in hopes of seeing manta rays. No luck on the mantas but the dives were still well worth it. I saw some really great snails including a Hawaiian Nassarias (predatory snail) and a little cowrie. I also saw heaps and heaps of different fish species on a fairly healthy bit of reef and quite a variety of eels including garden eels (they live in holes on soft sandy bottom areas and they look like a whole bunch of plants growing out of the sea floor), very large yellowish guys whose names I cant remember, and two smaller species that were speckled. The eels were out of their burrows at night swinging around like very fat snakes in search of a fishy meal. I honestly don't know how they survive because we watched them hunt for quite a while and they always missed.
After the night dive, I spent the night in Kona and headed up toward Waimea for a hike that turned out to be closed. I bought some chai at Starbucks and headed over the saddle road between very large volcanoes Mona Kea and Mona Loa instead. I drove half way up Mona Kea to see the silverswards (an endemic plant that looks like a tiny silver yucca). I tried to get someone in 4wd to take me up to the top as dodgy rental cars were not advised to make the ascent. Everyone I asked declined to give me a lift. I guess I looked too dodgy too.
The rest of my stay in big island was very rainy so I hit up the Hilo farmers market, some waterfalls, and did some snorkeling in puna between intense showers. I slep and read a lot too.

On the 13th of Nov. I headed back to Mel and Jesse's late in the evening, realized that I actually left at midnight on the 15th (meaning I had to be at the airport the night of the 14th not the night of the 15th like I thought for some reason) and scurried around to get things in order (washing, packing, ordering travel insurance, posting letters and packages to California, convincing t-mobile that they really didn't need to charge me for terminating my account, and shopping for tickets to PNG!!!) that friday. I did take a break to bask in my productivity and people watch on the beach with my former co-worker and her family at Waikiki in the avo and enjoyed a beautiful dinner of thai food with Mel and Jesse before I hauled myself and my packs onto another plane further south. It was a great stay for sure!

I am in Brisbane now. After delayed flights in Fiji, inactive credit cards, a very very large storm, a long night in a hostel, and interesting interactions with the random people you meet when you are traveling with out a very solid agenda, I have made it to Nicole's house. I haven't done much exciting here, just trying to get things in order for my Dec. 2 departure to Lae.

All the best to yous! I'll post pictures soon. I promise!
-c