We left our first campground today and headed back over the volcano. Stopped at a cool place called Akatsuka Orchid Gardens where they had the largest selection of tropical flowers on Hawaii. Absolutely stunning flowers and R took a lot of pics but needs to go to the Apple store in Kona and get something so he can download his pics onto his Ipad. Apparently everything smelled amazing but with my cold I can't smell anything.
Then we stopped in Volcano townsite and had lunch at Cafe Ono, which is rated #1 on Tripadvisor. The food was tasty but it took forever and we felt a bit stressed as the sun goes down around 5:30 and we had a campground to find. The cafe is at the back of an art gallery and we saw lots of pretty things but we are trying not to buy much as we have so far to go.
We found a famous black volcanic sand beach and saw half a dozen sea turtles napping on the shoreline. We didn't spend much time there but it was lovely with the trade winds and the waving palm tree fronds.
Fortunately, we hit our next campground around 3:00 or 3:30. It was a scary, creepy place in the desert. People came, used the pit toilets and boogied out of there. We hung up some laundry to dry and watched as the number of tiny moths grew...and grew. It was some like some biblical pestilence. Richard suggested we press on and find somewhere else to spend the night. Halleluiah! Now we were racing the sun and hoping we didn't run out of gas as we climbed up the west side of the island in the pouring rain. We found the Manago Hotel on trip advisor and they had room! It is a very interesting hotel, it's 3rd generation run by a Japanese American family. The room is largish, with a balcony, stand up shower and double bed. No t.v., no phone, no worries. It's very clean and the staff in the hotel and restaurant are so friendly and helpful. We had a delicious pork chop meal the first night and a great breakfast the next day. The prices are so reasonable. Richard didn't want to go back out in the downpour so I bought him a toothbrush for less than $2. Seriously?! I wish the drug store back home was so reasonable. Between the main building where the restaurant is they have a large Koi pond with gorgeous fish, a waterfall, and lush potted plants everywhere with a tiny pagoda statue. It is so serene and there are breezeways to get between the buildings so you don't get wet in the rain.
The owner gave us lots of ideas on what to do in Captain Cook (the town in which the hotel is located). We headed about 6 miles south and spent much of the day today in a National Park known as the Place of Refuge. Back in polynesian times if you walked in the shadow of the King or did other minor things it could mean death. But if you managed to get to a place of refuge you could be forgiven. We saw lots of cool structures that had original foundations of lava rock walls and thatched buildings that were recreations. We also went out to the tide pools and saw 3 green sea turtles and some tropical fish and sea urchins. We have also seen 3 mongoose crossing the roads, they are quite small and kind of slink across the road. R found a brilliant greenish yellow gecko that had regrown his tail and took a few pics of him. We also saw lots of black crabs that are well camouflaged that scurried across and skipped between the black lava flows.
After that we stopped at Saint Benedict's Painted Church. It was quite lovely.
We have seen some brilliant red plants along the sides of the road and today I realized they are poinsettias! They are so much bigger here. What R called "elephant ears" are actually anthuriums. We've also seen lots of angel''s trumpets, bird of paradise, hydrangea and plain old geraniums. We had a pretty dismal lunch at a bakery cafe and the highlight were some brightly coloured birds, yellow-billed cardinals and saffron finches, in the parking lot. We've also seen lots of Myna birds. Earlier we had stopped at a coffee factory looking for lunch only to find a fine rooster strutting his stuff. Lots of overpriced coffee and macadamia nuts. We are in the coffee belt but given all the doctoring I do to my coffee I just don't need to taste all the different kinds.
We had planned on going to an ethnobotanical garden and possibly on a tour of a coffee plantation after lunch but my cold is kicking my butt and we took the rest of the day off. Tomorrow we want to go to the beach next to the National Park where we can snorkel with the sea turtles and check out our next campsite this is about 2 miles away. If I'm still feeling wretched we might just try to stay at our lovely little hotel.
The painted church
One of my favorites, pink bougainvillea
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