Punalu'u

We had a leisurely and delicious breakfast at Lava Java in Kona (where a sparrow shat on my shorts), and then set out south on the 11. It took a few hours to get to Punalu'u beach, and I was kind of disappointed when we arrived. It's pretty heavily built up and even has a concession stand on the beach: quite different from our beloved "secret beach". We fought the crowds to set up baby shop on the black sand for a while. Zoe didn't seem to enjoy it very much, but she gamely played, and washed down her crackers down with a few mouthfuls of sand


We bought a coconut which had been split by a local guy. He uses a gigantic machete which had been cobbled together from part of a mill blade. There was to be no haggling about the price on this item.

From Punalu'u, we drove (yes, lots of driving! It is the BIG island, after all) to South Point -- the southernmost part of the United States. We were scoping out the trail head to the Green Sand beach, but ended up at the cliffs with canoe hoists (NE of the actual South point). The water was very calm, and it looked like jumping into the water would be really fun. Actually, it looks like deep water soloing would be a total blast there. There's a shelf of rock under a lot of the cliff band, so choosing a spot would be critical. I shot a few medium format frames from one of the cliffs, and watched a kid jump from the cliffs as I was setting up.

It really is a beautiful place with a lot of history. I would love to spend a few days out there at some point. Chloe is the one with the Basque fisherpersons blood, so I'll let her catch the fish while I deep water solo -- sound good, CZ?!

Along the way home, we stopped at a fruit stand that sold soursop!

It turned out to be unripe, but it was very cool to see this sold at a roadside stand, reports of atypical Parkinson's disease from annona notwithstanding (I find those reports unconvincing, in any case).

Kona, Hilo

We started the day with a visit to the Aloha Angel Cafe, which has delicious french toast with coconut and macadamia nuts. As mentioned earlier, Zoe's newest hobby is to go running through and out of the restaurant, so we usually get to know the surroundings of the restaurant pretty well. Aloha Angel has two very cool things about it: a bush with hundreds of beautiful Gold Dust Day Geckos, and a gigantic mango tree. Here's one of the little geckos:

From breakfast, we drove South on route 11 and stopped near Captain Cook at the Greenwell Farms, where Zoe made friends with a cat



The tour is well worth the time, and includes a detailed and excellent description of the history of the farm, the coffee making process, and a tour of the various fruit trees that they grow.



After a brief stop to buy plumeria leis for chloe and gail, we drove south along the belt highway.
We continued on to Hilo, where we checked out the Farmers' market, and bought Papaya, Apple Bananas, macadamia nuts, papaya jam and some salad greens.

We also stopped at the Two Ladies mochi shop:

which makes the best mochi that I have had anywhere.

mochi