It’s time to leave Hawi now and head back down to the Kona side of the island. We have a 3:00 Kona brewery tour, so we have to maximize our sightseeing time. This time we are returning down the coast road, which gives us a good look at….the vast nothingness that is the Kona side of the island. Seriously – vast nothingness. Just scrub on lava on either side of the long straight boring road.
We have 3 stops we want to make, but end up only having time for one – the Lapakahi State Historical park which has a short 1 mile loop trail around historical artifacts and sites. There is a good informational brochure that points out all sites and explains the significance. The burial site, house site, historic house, salt making, etc. It is very interesting to see how Hawaiians lived ages ago. Plus it is a gorgeous setting on the coast.
We walk the loop, and by the end of the trail, we are more than ready for the A/C in the car. OMG it is really hot here. Typical Big Island hot. Miserably so. Fortunately we don’t have anything else outdoors to do – because we’re right on the edge of our timeline to make the tour. We do stop at the scenic point for Kiholo Bay. In the books, this looked like a great place to go hike and explore the pools and beach – but the scenic point leaves us totally unimpressed.
Good thing we skipped this one. We make it back for our tour – we’re even early enough to have a beer and wine before the tour. We are pleasantly surprised to find Bob, one of the glass blowers on the ship, at the bar. We didn’t expect him onboard until after we left the ship in Vancouver, so it is nice to see him here.
The brewery tour is interesting – it’s so small, and old school, especially compared to yesterday in Maui. Everything is done by hand, they use local ingredients and of course recycle everything, including the spent grain which they use in their brew pub breads and give to local farmers for feed. There is so much social conscience here – its refreshing to see and hear how many people are really trying to take care of the environment. And when we get into the cold room, where they are storing the kegs we find my very own beer. Nice!
After the tour we spend a nice half hour or so talking with 2 couples over our tasting. Both are staying at resorts in Kona and love it (we are thinking they are crazy, but different strokes for different folks!). Done with our beer (Aina Brown, Wailua Wheat, the Pipeline porter, which I love, and the nasty lemongrass/ginger one we can’t remember the name), we take our souvenir tasting glasses and walk back to the tender pier. On the way we decide its too early to get back on the ship, so we opt for a last drink before departing. A couple of options (one that is called “almost oceanside”) are available, we choose Paradise Bar and Grill on the 2nd floor, facing the ocean.
Great place, all open air, and fortunately there was a breeze. Nice band playing, and of course good beer and wine. And a great beer sign on the wall! Kona’s not so bad after all. LOL.
Back to the ship on the bumpy tender ride, we spend the evening at the hot glass show (it is great at night), with Ryan (from Richmond, VCU), Bob and Carl (the new guy – well – new to us). Such fun. We’re trying to stay up until midnight tonight because we will be sailing past the volcano and we are hoping to see some lava activity. So, we head back to our room to grab a long sleeve shirt and refills on our beverages…and you can imagine our surprise when we find the TV on and a visitor in our bed…..
….OMG, in all the years and nights we’ve spent on cruise ships, we have never seen something like this! We laughed and laughed – it was fabulous. I mean even the remote is right there! Peter our cabin steward is the best (not to mention he brings me extra chocolates every night – he’s the bomb)!
So, after our shock and laughing attack, we go back up on deck to watch for the volcano. The captain is supposedly going to be close to shore and “circle” the volcano, which isn’t physically possible, but we figure they mean turn the ship in a 360 so everyone can see. Well, it’s windy as all get out, we are really far off shore, and the only thing you can see is a quarter moon.
Bust! Ok, so there is a little glow you can barely see up on the mountain side that is probably the lava lake, but, that’s about it. They never get any closer to shore (can you say Concordia?) and really, it’s a big nothing. Although we were very impressed that at midnight, as we are all standing up on deck gawking at nothing, there were servers out with snacks – reminiscent of the Midnight gourmet bites of old. That was nice at least.
So, late night, but fun, we return to the cabin and reluctantly disrobe our guest (I want to keep him, but he’s hogging the pillows), and climb into bed to prepare for our last day in Hawaii.
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