Pu'uhonua o Honalunau (place of refuge)

Bit of an odd day today. My Kona Airbnb host had suggested an itinerary which sounded pretty good, so I headed to Pu'uhonua o Honalunau (place of refuge) to try to get some cultural understanding. Very simplistically, if someone broke the law (kapu), to prevent the gods taking revenge on everyone, the law breaker had to be killed. But if they could make it to a pu'uhonua (place of refuge) they were protected by special gods and after a few days could return home. The pu'uhonua at Honalunau is an area of rock by the sea, cut off from land access by a high wall (300m long, 5m deep, 4m high), so to get they you had to swim, risking the currents and being cut to pieces on the volcanic rock.

Afterwards the tide was too high for me to feel safe snorkelling at Two Step beach which is right next door, then I drove along the very pretty Painted Church Road, but didn't find the church (painted inside to resemble a European cathedral... sounds amazing 😣 ), and by then it was raining so hard I drove right past Kaaloa Super J food place. Maybe my brains were fried by the heat. Days like this are frustrating because I feel I'm missing so much.

On the plus side I managed to fill up with gas, with a bit of help from a woman filling her own car. The difference, which she found astounding, is that where in the Uk we pay for what we've taken, here, if you want to pay inside rather than at the pump, you pay first, say $40, then the pump delivers to that value.Read more