Continued from Hawaii Part One
http://www.lighthousekeepers.com/cgi-bin/forumscgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=15&t=000929#000000 OK, here's the next installment of the trip.
We stuck around Kona the next two days. Esther and Beth went snorkeling- I opted out of that and mailed some stuff and stuck around the condo.
In the afternoon on Wed 6-8 we were supposed to take a flight around the Big Island by airplane but it was cancelled by the company when we got there. They made arrangments for another company to fit us into their schedule for the next afternoon.
Esther and Beth went snorkeling again on Thursday morning and I found something to occupy my time while they were there. We went on our airplane trip that afternoon and flew around most of the coast of the Big Island- except for the Easternmost tip due to the extremely strong winds there (see Part 1).
We actually flew over the crater of the Mauna Loa and saw it though a break in the clouds for a few seconds- didn't mange to get any good pictures of it. I did get some photos of the lavas going into the sea, some waterfalls and one of the two Lighthouses we flew over.
Here's a shot of Kuahola Point from the plane (more from the ground to follow).
On Friday 6-10 Esther and Beth were scheduled to take the trip up to the Summit of Mauna Kea. Here's a link to more info on that-
http://www.ifa.hawaii.edu/mko/maunakea.htm I opted to rent a 4 wheel drive vehicle and make the trek out to Kauhola Point. It is definitely not advisable to go to this Lighthouse in anything but a 4 wheel drive vehicle- preferably a Jeep or Truck due to the depth of some of the holes in the "road" to the Lighthouse.
You drive up to the north coast of the Big Island and turn down a side road which takes you to a closed gate with a sign that says no entrance private property. There is a junk yard / body shop right next to it so I went on in and asked if the Lighthouse was behind that gate and the gentleman said yes it was. He also told me that the sign was there for insurance purposes and as long as you closed the gate behind you (so the cows couldn't get out) it was fine to drive down there. He cautioned me not to try it without a 4 wheel drive vehicle though as the road was a bit rough (a definite understatement)
I went back out and went throught the gate and secured it after me. Here's a couple of pictures of the "road" to the Lighthouse.
I took others where it was actually worse but it was harder to see the rough spots in those photos.
It is about 1.5 miles out on this road to the Lighthouse. There was somebody else out there when I got there but he seemed indifferent to the Lighthouse.
Here's a photo especially for Greg.
That's the truck I rented for the day- not very conservative looking, now is it?
Here's another shot of the Lighthouse without the truck. The Lighthouse is a duplicate of Barber's Point Lighthouse over on Oahu.
Here's a shot from the airplane ride around the Big Island that we took the day before.
I went back to the condo and packed my bags as we were leaving Hawaii in the morning.
Dennis
End of Hawaii Part 2
