Day 9 - Back to Waikoloa

Today we headed from Hilo on the eastern-most side of the island to Waikoloa where we started nine days ago in the west.  This time we are staying at a condo in the Waikoloa Beach Villas.  We are expecting a week of more adventure, golf, and beautifaul Kohala (northwest) beaches.

Mauna Loa

To get to Waikola we took the famed Saddle Road - a road that traverses the "saddle" between 13000 foot behemoth volcanos Mauna Loa on the south and Mauna Kea on the north.

On our way out of town we stopped at Rainbow Falls, where you can supposedly see rainbows jumping off the falls, but sadly there was none and the falls was fairly pitiful compared to Akaka.

Then we went to the "Boiling Pots" - a series of pools and waterfalls in a row.  The water appears to Boil in the pots, but today only a little water was running between them so the effect was pretty weak.

Then we hit Saddle Road.  It has a bad rep as a very difficult road to drive, but they have made great improvements and all but about two miles was very nice pavement.  The road was kind of slow - lots of 25/35/45 mile per hour zones, but it made short work of the trip across the island. 

We had plenty of time to stop at the Mauna Kea visitor center at 9300 feet altitude.  Though not as cold as I expected, it was WICKED WINDY and I heard it was even worse at the top.

Mauna Loa is the home to some super giant telescopes that can see light from stars that are 13 billion years old.  The dry cliamte and lack of clouds makes it an ideal spot for viewing the night sky.  Heck, even in Waikoloa we could see the stars big and brighter than deep in the heart of Texas.  We saw the Big Dipper tonight and it looked like it was right in front of us.  (See blog Day 1-3 for Venus sighting).

Once we got off the mountain, it was not much longer to get to Waikoloa - we saw many wild turkeys along the way, which was odd.

Killing time in Waikoloa

We had some time to kill before the condo was ready - so we headed to picturesque A-Bay beach.  We're going to a luau there later this week - partly because the setting is so nice - the sunsets will be awesome.

Then we got to the condo.  Super nice.  Great location, great layout, fantastic furnishings and amenities.  The owners did a fantastic job with the place.  Mom cooked steaks on the outdoor barbecue while Dad took the kids swimming.

Tomorrow Dad golfs in the morning and we're going to Hapuna Beach - the #1 beach in America.

A wallpaper I filmed for our subscribers