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Published: July 21st 2005
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Situated a short plane ride south of Oahu, Big Island doesn’t attract the large crowds of its smaller neighbouring islands. 90% of the visitors to Hawaii stay on the island of Oahu and half of those stay at or near Waikiki. Big Island is famous for two things;
1. Captain Cook was killed on this island in 1779 in a town on the West Coast now known as 'Captain Cook' - very original name. Australians have somewhat immortalised Captain Cook and consider him to be the greatest explorer of his time. The Hawaiians do not glorify Cook or the influence the first Europeans had on their lives or culture. Speaking with some of the Hawaiians, I think they look at that period of time with sadness and it is not surprising given that within a hundred years of the first Europeans arriving (Cook is historically recorded as the first European to come across the islands) the native Hawaii population fell from 300,000 to 50,000 due to the introduction of diseases like smallpox. I guess a similar thing happened to the aborigines in Australia.
2. The Big Island is the home of Kilauea, considered one of the most active volcanoes
on Earth. Most surprisingly, the name of the town you go through to get to the volcano is called 'Volcano'.
28/05/05: Free airport pickup at my Big Island destination called Hilo took me to a hostel called Arnotts Lodge where free pizza and beers awaited me (a weekly occurrence at this lodge). Americans commemorate all fallen soldiers in past wars on Memorial Day this weekend. The timing of my departure from Oahu was fortunate because people from the mainland/other Hawaiian islands flock to Oahu, the home of Pearl Harbour for memorial services there. The most notable service is where they light thousands of lanterns and let them float out in the bay. Personally, I was glad I wasn’t amongst the crowds and I thought of this as I chatted to an interesting couple (a S.Aussie girl married to an American x-solider just finished service in Iraq), drinking my first ever Budweiser.
Hilo has a small fishing town ambience and is famous for being the rainiest city in the US. Volcanic mountains trap moisture laden clouds bringing 130 inches of rain to this town annually. Sure enough at approx 9pm every night it would bucket down (much to the
surprise of the silly NY college girls on a camping trip who had all of their baggage spread over the lawn - it was like watching a rerun of Clueless).
29/05/05: What do you do when you arrive in place and don’t know where anything is or how to get around? You do as Forrest Gump does and just run. So got up early and just ran in the general direction of the town. Started to feel a little hungry and after a couple of miles I found this place called 'Ken's Pancake House'. One of those awesome 24 hour breakfast diners with swivel chairs at the counter, red leather booths (See photo), suitable for someone running in off the street in a singlet.
The menu looked like something in between the Fast Eddy's menu we have at home and Willy Wonkers shopping list. Ordered 3 of the smallest 'Coin' sized pancakes (See photo) only to find when they arrived that coin sized must have been referring to their thickness. They were good though especially with the real Canadian maple syrup, blueberry syrup and whipped cream butter.
Someone told me a joke a few days ago; "What
is the difference between an Australian and a kayak?" Ans: "Kayaks tip." Hey!! I tip! When the service is good you are expected to tip 10-15% (Never ask a waiter/ess how much you should tip cause they always say 20%). No tipping at fast food joints or when the service is bad (maybe those two statements go hand in hand). I think I still have a bit to learn because the women at this diner looked at me funny when I went to the front counter and threw her the loose coins I received as change. I think I was meant to leave them on the table or something.
Anyway, being twice as heavy and at half the pace having eaten 2 out of the 3 coin sized pancakes, I continued running down the street. 2km later I decided to join the church service at the United Methodist Church of Hilo. The service was good and afterwards I went and had lunch with a group from the church. They were gracious enough to pay for my meal. For the rest of the day, Barbara and Dick, a lovely couple from the church, drove me around showing me the sights
on the east side of the island, including the second biggest waterfall on the island, Akaka falls (See photo).
30/05/05: One thing that I found a little bit disturbing is how the hostel treated my credit card details. Not sure how things are done elsewhere but in Australia we don’t tend to share credit card details willy nilly. That’s why I was surprised to hear the following from the nice girl at the counter when I asked to pay for a $60 tour:
Girl: "Yes, ok, we need your credit card details"
Micky: "That’s ok, ill pay a cash deposit"
Girl: "We don’t accept cash deposits"
Micky: "Ok... I’m not keen on you writing down my details in that pad so ill pay for the tour in full today"
Girl: "Sorry, policy is to get credit card details. You have nothing to worry about. Everybody else has given me their details."
I finally relented just after she told me that they shred the details (yeah right) only to find later on a disclosure at the bottom of
their brochure that you could make a cash deposit....hmmm. I didn’t want to complain too much because there was a sign in the lobby saying that the length of your stay would be determined on whether you 'fit' into the feel of the hostel. The hotel owner (Doug Arnott) is Australian.
Perhaps I am a little paranoid and maybe credit card savvy people out there can correct me but I thought it a little unusual that they also scanned a blank credit card slip and made me sign it before I rented an all-day $2 bike. Yes, I could ride off and destroy their $20 bike but they could also charge me for whatever they desire after I’m a million miles away.
Having given up my legs today for some wheels I meandered towards town again. Having a keen interest in anything that has a dorsal fin and can be eaten I decided to stop and check out a fishing boat that had just come in. The family that run the boat used tuna (ahi), barracuda etc fishing as a supplement to their weekly income. They were very friendly and I asked if I could buy one of the smaller yellowfin tuna that they caught earlier that morning off them but they declined and said that I could have it on the house (See photo). They said they might come to Australia so I hope they come and visit Perth. Well...you can imagine what I ate for the next 3 days but I wasn’t complaining.
Trust that all is well in Perth, Indonesia, Mongolia or wherever you all are now. Its a little disappointing that Corby got 20 years but hopefully she can be brought back to an Australian jail. Also a little concerned about news of a spearfisherman being eaten whole by a GWS in South Africa. Please keep on sending me this wonderful news.
Mike
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