The adventures of Jeff, Aim, and Ollie

We decided to spend the day exploring Manele Bay’s sister resort and Lanai city. Manele Bay has a free shuttle that goes to it’s sister resort the Lodge at Koele. Basically if you stay at either resort, you can use the facilities at both. Manele Bay is an oceanside resort whereas Koele is in the middle of the woods and is designed to look and feel like a british hunting lodge. We got there just in time for tea and had pastries and tea in the resort’s huge lounge. Then we got golf clubs and played a round of Putt Putt on the resort’s extensive course. Next we tried out croquet. After that we took a long hike through the resort’s gardens, waterfalls, and gazebos. It was beautiful and we couldn’t decide which resort we liked better. We were too late for lawn bowling so we’ll have to come back for that and possibly try out archery and clay shooting on our next visit. We then took the shuttle to Lanai City to walk around and have dinner at a NY pizza place. Who knew that NY pizza had made it all the way to Lanai!

Today we set off to start the next half of our trip on the tiny island of Lanai. We flew from Kona to Maui and then to Lanai. Lanai is really small and has 2 resorts, one hotel, one B&B, and a population of about 3000. We quickly realized how small it was when we got on a plane with only five other people heading to Lanai and then when the plane landed we were the only ones that got off, everybody else was headed to Honolulu. We went to the baggage claim and stood by a sign that said baggage claim until someone lifted up a wall and handed out four bags, all of which were our bags. We got on a shuttle again carrying only the two of us and traveled around the island. It was gorgeous with mountains, forests, and cliffs over the ocean and a few homes and shops in Lanai City, the only city on the island. Finally we made it to our hotel, Manele Bay, and seriously I felt like we were on the show “Lifestyles of the rich and famous”. I have never in my life seen a resort so beautiful. It felt unreal. The room was almost as beautiful as the resort grounds with a marble bathroom as big as the regular room, a balcony with a couch and chairs overlooking the ocean, and a Plasma TV! We spent the rest of the day exploring the hotel’s hidden rivers, waterfalls, fountains, and garden and relaxing. I’m not sure we are ever going to be able to leave this island!

Today we decided to take our biggest adventure and make the three hour trek to the southernmost point in the USA and, Kilauea, the only currently active volcano in the Hawaiian islands. We went to Hawaii Volcanoes National Park and drove along a road full of craters from different eruptions over the years and even saw a mountain that had been created from all of the lava. The road we were driving was supposed to go all the way through to a different part of the island called Hilo, but in the 1970’s a major eruption caused lava to flow over the road blocking the way. We drove up to where the lava started and hiked out over miles of lava until we could see where the volcano was currently erupting sending lava into the ocean and sending up smoke and extending the land mass of the island. We also drove through hills with pockets of smoke erupting from the heat from the volcano below. On the way out we stopped at a lava tube that we were even able to walk through! We even learned that there is a new Hawaiian island in the process of forming off the Southern Coast of the Big sland from a different volcano.

We got up way too early this morning to drive to the northmost point of the island to try out a few more adventures. Before we left we got to have our first breakfast at Hale Hualalai on this unbelievable balcony that looks over acres of tropical fruit trees and coffee plants. You can see all the way to the coast. The food was great but the view was unreal! When we finished, we began our drive. We drove through deserts of black lava, valleys, pine forests, and rainforests and finally ended up in Hawi ( pronounced Havee). In Hawi, we started our adventures on a kayak tour called Flumin Da Ditch. Basically a 4x 4 van took us onto the grounds of an old sugar plantation and then we got on a kayak and our tour guide took us on a kayak through 3.5 miles of the Sugar Plantation’s irrigation system. We went through ditches, flumes and tunnels on the system and passed through rain forests, ravines and waterfalls. Next, we went on a hummer tour through rainforests in the Kohala Mountains. We went through rivers, valleys, and forests and past all kinds of native plants and beautiful waterfalls. We were able to sit in the open seats in the back of the hummer so our view was incredible. We even stopped at a swimming hole with three waterfalls at the end and Jeff and I jumped in and swam under the waterfalls! After our adventures, we drove back to Kona and had dinner on the beach at Bubba Gump Shrimp Co.

This morning we checked out of the Fairmont and headed to a small bed and breakfast named Hale Hualalai in the hills above Kona (another part of the island). After checking in with Lonn at the B&B we rushed off to catch a tour to the top of Mauna Kea. It’s the tallest mountain in Hawai’i, and if you count the height going down to the sea floor, the tallest mountain in the world. It’s also the volcano that formed the north side of the big island, but has been dormant for 4500 years. Now the only thing at the top is a large collection of observatories, since it is hailed as the best place on the planet to watch the night sky. The tour stopped on the way to the summit for dinner, and then we headed up to the top to see the sunset from nearly 14,000 feet. The view was amazing, and we got to see the best telescopes in the world starting their observations for the night. The only thing we didn’t like about the summit is that it was below freezing up there, and there was snow, quite different from the weather down by the ocean. After the sunset we headed back down the mountain to the visitors center at 9,000 feet where it was quite a bit warmer but we still had a great view of the stars. The guide brought along a telescope and gave us a good tour of the sky, including Saturn where we could see the rings, Jupiter where we could see four of the moons, the Southern Cross which neither of us had seen before, a quick introduction to navigation via the stars, and an excellent view of many other constellations, planets, star formations, and stars we had never seen before. They also had hot chocolate and cookies. Mmm, cookies. The whole tour was incredible!

We started off the day with another great breakfast and then spent the rest of the day enjoying our last day at the Fairmont. We snuck onto the chaise lounges usually reserved for spa treatments that look over the ocean and enjoyed doing absolutely nothing. Then when we got tired of that we moved on to relaxing in the hammocks again. Since Jeff had his digital camera to play with we spent a lot of time stopping at every single flower and plant in the hotel so Jeff could take a picture of it. I think he took a picture of me while I was sleeping in a hammock from at least ten different angles. I guess this is what being married to a gadget lover is like. Next we hiked past the resort grounds and found an awesome beach. We met a sea turtle sunbathing and named him Lou and he enjoyed sunbathing with us. Then we went back to the hotel and snorkeled in this incredible cove where we got to swim with Lou’s cousins. It was awesome, all of a sudden you look down and there’s this 250 lb turtle swimming below you. There were also tons of beautiful fish. We finished the day swimming in the pool and the jacuzzi and relaxing in the hammock once again before dinner. All in all a great day!

We started the day with an Hawaiian breakfast. Amy had banana macadamia nut waffles with coconut syrup. YUM! After breakfast we decided that we should get all the work and errands done that we had left to do, so we could enjoy the rest of the trip. In the morning Amy finshed some work she had left over and I went to find a new digital camera and ran some errands in Kona. Although the day started off with work and errands we made sure to finish it off with a lot of relaxation. We realized that it doesn’t get much better than lying in a hammock sharing a piece of chocolate lava cake with your new wife/husband, watching the sunset while wading into a clear blue ocean, taking a dip in a jacuzzi next to a waterfall, and finally dancing in the pool to live music.

We woke up this morning and went for a buffet breakfast at the hotel. After breakfast we explored a little bit before we had to jump on yet another plane headed for the big island of Hawaii. After a short stop in Maui we made it to the Kona airport and picked up our convertible. At the hotel, the Farimont Orchid Resort, we were greeted with bright purple leis and felt like we had finally arrived on our honeymoon. We took some time to explore the beach, the sea turtle nesting area, the pools, jaccuzis, and hammocks. After some relaxing we had a nice dinner at the bar by the beach.

We’re off to Hawaii for our honeymoon today! The wedding was a success, and now it’s time to relax. We left Austin at 6:00pm and got into Honolulu around midnight. We’re flying through LAX on our way. Before we left we ran into Linn, Allie, Mike, and Tom at the airport and almost missed our flight while chatting with them. As soon as we heard the last call for our flight we ran to the gate and just made it on the plane. We made it into Honolulu without any problems, and enjoyed flying first class! The only problem was that once we got to Honolulu we realized that although it was only midnight in Hawaii it was actually 5am in Austin, and we were exhausted. We made it to our first hotel, the Hilton Hawaiian Village and passed out.

We spent the weekend relaxing at the lake in Maine with friends from high school. The weather was perfect on Friday and Saturday, hovering just below 80. Sunday was overcast and colder, but that was a nice break from the Texas heat.