Sunrise from the balcony

To finish out our days at Kona, we visited the Place of Refuge, took a self-guided coffee tour, had brunch at the Outrigger, visited some farmers’ markets, ate out a couple of times, and did more snorkeling (shocking, I know).

Place of Refuge

Also called Pu’uhonau o Honaunau (national park service web site on Place of Refuge). It’s a national park of the place where Hawaiians that broke kapu could be forgiven, as long as they got there before someone killed them for breaking kapu. There are recreations of old buildings and heiaus and some fish ponds. It’s a lot of fun to walk around and we’ve been lucky to stumble across some cultural demos going on each time we’ve visited.

We wanted to visit the little lava tube here off the 1781 trail, but turns out it’s been closed for a couple of years because the cieling is collapsing. Guess we were lucky to visit it the last time we were on the Big Island (and it was lucky for us it was closed this time because that meant we visited the Kaumana Lava Tube, more on that in a later post).

We also went snorkeling at Two Step, a spot just outside the park where you get into the water at a set of ’steps’ in the lava. The snorkeling was good even though it wasn’t very sunny and was fairly choppy. We ate at the Coffee Shack at the way back. Good sandwiches with a very good kona lime pie. And somehow Josie spotted a Jackson’s chameleon in the leafy vegetation just off the deck that we ate on.

See the pictures in our Place of Refuge photo set.

Coffee Tour

Mom found a coffe tour on the web at 101 things to do in Hawaii, so we decided to do it. We completely missed the first coffee farm, Ueshima, but it was impossible to miss Ferrarri coffee, opposite the bright pink Kona hotel. The woman there invited us to try the coffee cherries growing on the bushes outside. The bright red coverings of the beans are sweet and tasty. We then visited Kona Blue Sky Coffee and took a short tour. On to Holualoa Coffee where we took a self-guided tour and talked to one of the guys who worked there about the coffee bean roasting process. We also got to watch them roasting coffee. Last stop was Greenwell Farms for another short tour.

It was fun driving up into the cool, misty hills, out of the heat of the lower elevations.

You can see more pictures in our Coffee Tour photo set.

Farmers’ Markets

We found a couple of farmers’ markets. The one in Hilo was hot and mostly had inexpensive shell necklaces, though there was some good fruit: 6 papayas for a buck. We also went to a small market up in a nearby shopping market. Not only was there live Hawaiian music and Josie got a hair wrap and we got breakfast, but we also went to Longs, where we got great souvenirs (Hawaiian shirt, mug, decals, and sandals).

Oh, and we visited the Donkey Balls factory outlet, you can see the door to the donkey castration room in our photos. What are donkey balls, you ask? Only a macadamia nut surrounded by a ball of Ghirardelli chocolate. Ono. We only found out about the Ghirardelli chocolate when we visited the factory outlet and saw the huge, 50 lb bags of chocolate from Ghirardelli.

Eating Out

We had a couple of good meals. Sunday brunch at the Outrigger, with lots of local food and within walking distance of our hotel, who could ask for more? We also had some ono local food at the Big Island Grill in Kona. We happened to get to the Big Island Grill between lunch and dinner. Good thing, too. We were seated immediately, but when we left, it was hard to get out of the restaurant because of all the people waiting to be seated.

Final Day at Kona

I took the last two shots in our photo set on the last day in Kona. One is a surfing heiau (temple), the only one devoted to surfing. Apparently, the surfing spot that we watched every morning was one that the alii (ruling class) used. Of course, only the alii could surf in the early days, anyone else surfing was kapu. The last shot is of the tiny church we passed each day walking to Kahaluu Beach, our snorkeling spot. It literally holds 12 people. I never saw anyone but tourists in there, but it was always open.