Big Island - Hawaii

Another early morning as we took our "Speedie Shuttle" to the airport for the flight on Hawaiian Air to Kona on the island of Hawaii. The flight was just long enough to enjoy a cup of coffee.......about a half hour. We picked up our rental car and drove into Kona to our hotel, the Royal Kona Resort, to find that our rooms had a spectacular view of the ocean!

After a nice lunch at one of the hotel restaurants, we headed out to explore the north end of the island.We went up Rt 19, took a tour of a new resort/condo area called Waikaloa Hilton resort.  Not sure why people would want to live or vacation way out here! Continuing north we stopped at Hapuna Beach State Park - a couple of miles down this absolutely horrible road to the "beach" - which was rocks and coral. The weather by now was mostly cloudy, temperature in the low 80s and VERY humid. S no risk of sunburn!

Then we turned inland on Rt 190 the Mamalohao Highway, rising to over 200 feet as we crossed the bottom of the Mauna Kea volcano, which was enshrouded in clouds and causing it rain upon us.We arrived back in Kona at about 6:00, tidied up and had  nice dinner in the same hotel eatery.

We were actually a bit disappointed in today's drive. There is nothing up there! In fact, its barren, with acres and acres of lava flows, looks not unlike Idaho and Oregon!

View from our room

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Our hotel

Mahalo means " Thank You"