Hawaii Drive to Cooks Bay and Holualoa Village

Asleep by 11 Thursday night, up at 7, coffee on the patio, a walk, a swim and we are off for a drive.  We decided to just do a short one today.  LOL.  5+ hours later we were back at the condo.  No super highways here, lots of one lane roads with elevation changes and windy windy.  

 Our beautiful 1 bedroom, full kitchen timeshare is at The Bay Club at Waikoloa Beach Resort.  Absolutely amazing, only thing wrong is we want to stay for a month.  :)

This whole area is a lava bed.  Mauna Kea erupted 4500 years ago and basically left most of the area a wasteland.  Mauna Lao (a very popular crossword clue) has moved to the active stage and has been rumbling again.  The devastation is amazing, but surprising the earth is very resilient and tundra and trees are starting to grow again.  Along with a vast track of timeshares, hotels, condos and private homes.

I ran into Magnum PI.  I did say he reminded me of a tall Dano from Hawaii 5O and was told he is too whiny.  He is more the Tom Selleck type :).

 This is the first scenic viewing point down the road from us and these are basically tunnels the lava flowed from into the ocean, which were then used as tunnels.

 

 Continuing down the Queen's Highway we came to Cook's Monument, this is where he first made landfall.  This road was our biggest elevation change and windiest.  We were going downhill and barely got over 30 mph.

 Lots of waves and lots of surfers.  NUTS

 

I could picture having a mai tai on the upper balcony.    

A little garden artwork

Waves, beaches and flowers, the colours are amazing.  

 

 On the way down to Cook's monument we noticed a sign for "The Painted Church" and bonus we didn't have to go back up that road.  This is an active catholic church with the most amazing pictures of the bible on every wall inside the church and the most amazing view of the Pacific Ocean.  It dates back to 1842.

 Our next stop was the art village of Holualoa.  It is situated about 1500 feet up the mountain with an amazing view of the Pacific.  Beautiful breezes and the smell of coffee greets you as you exit your car in this lovely little art village which is surrounded by coffee plantations.

This is one bathroom I did not use :)

 

We stopped for lunch at the Holuakoa Gardens & Cafe where Jim had the catch of the day a striped marlin and I had a blue cheese salad.  I also had a beautiful pinto grigio called Mongris Marco Fellage 2014.    Delightful, have to find some for sipping on the dock in Muskoka.  

 

 

 Our last stop of the day was a little wine ooops I mean coffee tasting, how could we resist the name "Hula Daddy".  I just love the way places built on hills/mountains have such great views and breezes.  I also love they way they don't seem to worry too much about windows.  It rains, it dries up.  What more could you ask for.  :)

The lovely young lady was explaining to us about coffee growing and brewing.  They had a great collection of different coffee machines from the ages and different parts of the world.  The same coffee will taste totally different depending on how you perk it.  I enjoyed a med roast with 3 sugars and 2 cream, amazing.  :)  I also tried a tea made from the coffee skin, it was quite delish.  

 

 

Jim getting some free plantains and oranges from the lovely young lady who explained our coffee tastings for us.

Mauna Kea was surrounded by rain clouds all day, although we didn't get a drop.  Thankfully as the roof was down the whole day.  (I hope they were rain clouds and not steam lol).