Around the Big Island on Two Tanks of Gas – Day 3: Black Sand Beach, Turtles, and Green Sand Beach

What I loved about this trip most were my easy and unrushed mornings. I would wake up around 6:00 am when it got light, step out of the tent, stretch, wash up and then slowly prep and eat my breakfast. I typically sliced up from fruit to snack on throughout the day (oh the papaya, mango, star fruit, and dragon fruits were deelish!), slowly packed up and then by around 8:00 or 9:00 am was on the road to my next point of interest. So that was how this morning began ...

I was on the road to Black Sand Beach and got there nice and early around 8:30am. With the 2nd half of my breakfast in hand, I moseyed on over to the beach to find the turtles that my guidebook told me would be sunbathing there. On the way there, a family from Alabama caught my attention and told me there were 5 or 6 of them about halfway down the beach! Totally stoked, I soon spotted three on the beach and a couple of them floating in the shallow water seemingly enjoying each wave of water washing over them. I found a spot on the rocks, plopped down, then enjoyed the peacefulness of watching the turtles and feeling the sun rising higher in the sky.

As more tourists arrived over the next hour, I walked around to try to find a quieter spot. I found a tide pool where one turtle was cruising around on its own and watched it for awhile. I didn't leave soon enough though. As I once again set to find another quieter spot, an irresponsible tourist family took over my spot, saw the turtle, then approached it and touched it. For those of you who don't know, disturbing turtles in their natural habitat is illegal or "kapu", meaning forbidden, in Hawaiian. Not only that, as I'm sure we have all experienced with the numerous "don't feed the bears", "don't feed the birds" or "don't feed the raccoons" signs, it habituates them with human interaction which distracts them from their natural habits. So as the members of this family touched the turtle, I glared ... I even said something, but they ignored it while I died a little inside (like the time the man we went snorkelling with in the Maldives broke off a giant piece of coral by stepping on it, albeit accidentally). I was so angry that people could be so ignorant and inconsiderate. It took sometime for me again to recognize it was something I could not control, but I really was quite angry because turtles are such a precious and endangered species around the world.


After that, I decided I had to move on. I went on to Naahelu where I had a tent site booked at Margo's Corner. Margo herself was pleasant and such a trooper. She has Parkinsons and runs this little business plus a small shop on her own. She does have workers who visit to help her out and told me she was pretty independent as she's been meeting people from online dating the last few years. Go Margo! Anyhow, I set up my tent, tossed my stuff inside, then went off to find Green Sands beach!

Long, dusty, seaside walk to Green Sands! 

I was SO glad I rented an all-wheel drive SUV as the road from Naahelu to Green Sands Beach and South Point eventually became pot-holed and single-lane where you had to pull over onto the little shoulder there was to let oncoming cars pass. It was a scenic drive going by horse stables, pastures, and even a wind farm! I got to the very dusty parking lot, thought about driving a part of the dirt road towards the beach, but decided to park the car and do the hike/walk as planned. It's a walk - but on very dusty sand covered tracks in full and direct sunlight. It was quite windy which was really helpful in keeping the body temperature down, but I almost got burned having forgotten my sunblock back in the car!

The coast is gorgeous, on your right hand side, as you go along the numerous dirt tracks created by 4x4s. However, you look left and all you can see is brown sand and dirt which makes it look like you're trudging through a desert. There were some moments where I thought "is this really worth it?" Just over an hour later, I finally reach the site where I was rewarded with a uniquely green sand beach (from the Olivine eroded from the giant rock that frames the bay) and beautiful turquoise blue waters. It wasn't very busy as only about 10 others were there, and a one point, it was just me and 3 others. I sat in the shade of the rock and enjoyed a little picnic with my peanut butter and banana sandwich washed down by some green Powerade. Sounds delicious, doesn't it? ;)

The walk back was more enjoyable, because I wasn't thinking so much "are we there yet?" I got back, super dusty, headed back to Margo's for a shower then went to a local bar for a well-deserved (well, at least I thought) meal of Laulau. I found Laulau to be very similar to a Chinese soup made with pork/pork bones and watercress, except, minus the soup. After the filling meal, I spent some time in the common area of Margo's (just me) reading, planning my next day, and helping her do some of her giant puzzle before calling it a night.

Around the Big Island on Two Tanks of Gas – Day 1: Mauna Kea

To my pleasant surprise, my awesome Hotwire deal got me a Ford Escape for $240/week. Even more surprising, I actually had a lot of fun driving this vehicle – maybe the first time I’ve enjoyed driving a domestic car! I managed just over 600mi in hitting all my sites and sights! Let's start with Day 1. 

I flew into Hilo from Honolulu on a Sunday morning arriving around 9:30am. My first order of business after picking up the car was stocking up at the local Wal-Mart with some basic dry goods and some camping fuel before setting off for my first adventure of the week: Mauna Kea. After stocking up and checking into the lovely Hilo Tropical Gardens where I had a cute little campsite and set up my tent in the rain, I booked it up to Mauna Kea OnizukaVisitor’s Center to make their 1pm escorted summit tour. It’s free, but you do need a 4WD or AWD to drive up to the summit. I make it there in the nick of time where we have a 1 hour film to watch about Mauna Kea, the observatories, and its flora and fauna. It’s also where our bodies start to acclimatize to the high altitude.

After the film, we all quickly do our washroom pit stop and then we all get in line with our vehicles to drive up as a convoy. Unfortunately, I caught a really foggy and rainy day so I felt like I was driving on Mars, surrounded by red rock and gravel, while being enveloped by clouds. As we get to the top, I hop out of the car and quickly notice I was a little unsteady on my feet! The altitude had definitely kicked in; I would compare it to being drunk. Being on the escorted tour meant we got to tour one of the telescopes. They took us into one of the Keck Observatory telesopes where we got to see the telescope rotate and move around. It was so massive and so cool to see the technology. This massive telescope weighing many tonnes had hydraulics that would allow just one person pretty much move it with just their arm. Okay, instead of getting into details, watch and listen to this video:

After that, we were free to explore the summit on our own. I was pretty set on seeing if the clouds would clear for the sunset so I was one of the people who decided to stay on the summit despite the single digit (Celsius) temperatures. I made the quick hike up to the summit as marked by a United States Geological Survey Marker and then huddled in the car for the remainder of the hour and a half until the sunset where I wished with all my might I would see it. No such luck. The whole time I was up there was rain, mist, and fog. By the time I started my descent, the summit temperature had dropped to 2 degrees Celsius. So close to snow!

The official summit of Mauna Kea. Okay, I lied. I got a glimpse of blue sky.

So back to the Visitor’s Center I go as they have a stargazing program every night (also free!). They sell bowl and cup noodles and I think the bowl I had was the best bowl I ever had being so cold after being on the summit. So remember how I said the stars were amazing when I was in Martinborough last year? Well, this blows that out of the water. Being at altitude with minimal light pollution, I have NEVER EVER seen so many stars or seen the Milky Way so clearly! I felt like I could just lie there and stare at the skies all night (except that it was cold). I was truly thankful for the volunteers and staff who run that program every night so that they can share such amazing sights. I wish that were my TV every night. At 10pm, the program ended so back down to Hilo I went for the night. I would have had a great night's sleep if it wasn't for the Coqui frogs!