Day 22 - Honu & Nene

Another late start this morning and our first stop was the market in downtown Kailua-Kona for papayas & bananas.  Since it was Sunday and the market is closed on Monday, we got a deal: 6 papayas for $2, rather than 5.  Two years ago, the going price for them was 7 for $2.  These are the GMO papayas, but just as good as the others, and the price is right, especially since we each eat a whole one each day.  I cut them in quarters and we each get one-quarter of each papaya.  That way no one gets stuck with a bad one, but they are actually all pretty good, though some are riper than others.

After the market, we went south on Hwy 11 to Captain Cook and the Sunday Market there.  We went to that market 2 weeks ago before Katie & Margie arrived, so this was their first time.  It's a nice little market with lots of arts & crafts as well as food items.  We reached Honaunau just at lunch time, so had lunch at Kona Coffeehouse & Cafe where we also had lunch 2 weeks ago.  Great spot for a Sunday brunch or lunch.  No gecko in our flower arrangement this time - darn!

After lunch, we continued south, and took a narrow 1-lane road 2 miles down to Ho'okena Beach.  A nice little community of houses down there with a very pretty beach and rocky area with surf spraying on it.  This is obviously someplace where locals gather although there seemed to be several other rental cars going down to see what was at the end of the road just like we did.

The road twists and turns through tropical vegetation with coffee and macadamia nut farms, then all of a sudden, the scenery changes to scrubby trees and even lava flows with little or no vegetation.  There are 13 climate zones in the world and 11 of them are represented on the Island of Hawaii, which makes driving around the island very interesting.  Eventually, we got back to lusher vegetation and iron wood trees.  We passed South Point, the southern most point in the US (don't tell Key West).  We went down there two years ago and were glad we did, but weren't up to doing the 12 miles of pot holes to get down there again.  We stopped at Punalu'u Baking Company, which prides itself on its Hawaiian sweet bread as well as being the furthest south bakery in the US. It was a nice stop with nice restrooms and a gift shop.  It was good to get out of the car for awhile.

I had decided we would go as far as we could by 4:00, then turn back.  We arrived at Punalu'u Beach, also called Black Sand Beach, at just about 4:00.  It was very windy and the surf was high, so weren't hopeful of seeing any honu (green sea turtles), but Margie, Katie, & I walked down on the beach anyway.  Unfortunately, Mom just can't manage the soft sand, so she stayed in the car.  We were not disappointed as there were 10 turtles resting on the beach today - the most I've ever seen in the three times I've been there.  On the way back to the highway, we saw 6 nene, Hawaiian geese and Hawaii's state bird, on a golf course.  Both the sea turtles and nene are native to Hawaii and were nearly extinct 30 or 40 years ago, but both have made an amazing come back and are protected.  It's really exciting to see them.

It was nearly 6:00 when we got to the Keauhou Shopping Center and picked up some items at Longs Drugs.  I didn't care what we did for dinner as long as I didn't have to cook it, but the pizza place was closed and I didn't feel like driving into Kailua for dinner, so I popped into the KTA supermarket and bought a frozen pizza and we had that with a tomato and avocado salad for dinner, with some lilikoi bars I bought at the market for dessert.

Another fun day in paradise, even with the little bit of rain we had up in the mountains coming home.