The Big Island

Greetings from Hawaii. After a 9 hour flight on a rather new Airbus 330 we landed in Honolulu and yes the flight was packed.

We made our way through Immigration and Customs along with all the other tourists, lots from China and Japan. Somehow we were the last ones to collect our luggage, must have picked the slowest line at Immigration though it was nothing like the queues at LA. Customs just waved us through and we went over to the Domestic terminal for our flight to Kona.

The weather is quite warm and humid with the occasional light shower. We had to make the transfer straight through to Kona on the Big Island so no time to hang in Honolulu just yet. On take off we took a few photos out the window, we flew in a 717 and passed some of the other islands on the way.

The Big Island emerged out of the haze and you could see old lava flows (ie a few hundred years old) out the window, the airport was actually on one of these old lava flows. The terminal was the first international terminal I have been in for many years that we actually had to walk off via a ramp instead of an air bridge and the terminal was mostly without walls - including the baggage claim.

After finding the bags it was time to start on the thing I have been dreading - hiring a car.

There isn't a lot of public transport on the Big Island so if you are going to get around you have to drive. We found the hire place and signed up for a Chev Impala. Nothing like the monster Impalas of the 70s it's more like a smallish Commodore. I does have a sun roof which is nice and a spoiler to make it go faster but it has a pedal hand brake which is a pain.

We loaded up and I got behind the wheel.

- First thing. It is awkward getting behind the wheel on the left hand side of the car, not sure why it just feels odd.
- Second thing. It is as scary as I expected. I find I have to talk out loud when I am turning so I know what lane to turn into - I am turning left I go into the right lane... Anyway we poked along the main road, through the main strip of Kona and found the Hotel with no problems. I think my passengers were as scared as I was.
- Third thing. It is hard getting used to looking in the rear view mirror on the right instead of on the left.

The Hotel is very nice. The room is great though a little over the top - we don't have 1 big TV we have 3 (and they are massive and each one has its own theatre sound system), we don't have 1 washing machine we have 2 (dunno why), and of course we have air conditioning.

On the first night we went into Kona and had a nice dinner watching the waves roll in from the west. Not often we get to see the sun go down over the ocean.

After dinner it was back to the hotel and ... crash.Read more