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Published: July 13th 2006
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On Saturday the 8th of July we had a pretty quiet day. After breakfast at our hotel (whilst watching dolphins swim by) we headed into the main part of Kona looking for an internet cafe. We were greeted by some friendly locals asking if we wanted to buy any herb however we politely declined. Upon asking where an internet cafe was we were asked where we were from. After responding Australia, we were asked, much to Shane's disbelief 'Where is that?'. After a relaxing afternoon by the pool we headed to Bubba Gumps Shrimp Co for dinner, a restaurant based on the movie 'Forrest Gump'. The food was delicious and we even got to take a bit home for a snack the following day.
On Sunday the 9th of July we went on what felt the longest walk (at least until this point). We walked down to Kahalu Beach Park to do some snorkelling. Along the way we watched as a shonky looking local drove his car off the side of the road and onto a rock retaining wall. Afterwards he quickly moved things around in the car (very suspicious). Anyway we ended up finally making it to the Beach
Park and were greeted by some very friendly turtles eating away by the shore. There were heaps of fish there and we also managed to get some underwater photos. After Chris's habitual snow cone we managed to track down a taxi and enjoyed the trip back to the hotel in the air conditioning (damn it's hot over here, Shane may even have a tan!!!). That night we headed to Basil's for some pizza and pasta and were greetd by potentially America's rudest waitress. Shane was quite surprised when the food arrived and it looked like it hadn't been tampered in some way. Of course we had to stop on the way home for an ice-cream!
The following day we woke early in the hope of finding a hire car to travel around the island. After calling a few places we went and collected the car from Affordable Rent a Car. After signing the agreement (and sussing out the suspicious sales person) we left the car yard. When driving into the car park for the hotel we managed to be attacked by a moped driver that was trying to overtake us and yep, our first accident had occurred. The moped
rider hit the passenger side (remember we are driving on the other side of the road) and went flying off doing a few summersaults in the process. He managed to get up and phoned his brother who came rushing there and managed to try and blame me for the accident (woops silly move mate). Fortunately a lady stopped who saw the whole thing and 10 minutes later, 2 cop cars, 2 ambulances and one surf rescue arrived. We managed to get the incident report done with the police. The guy turned out to be (apparently) non-english speaking and was riding unlicenced and without insurance. The police were quite nice about the whole thing and we eventually got all the necessary details off them and the bike rider collected his violation as well.
About an hour later we trecked back to the hire car company to explain the situation where the shady looking salesman provided another car and we headed off on our daily journey. We headed to the Volcano National Park and on the way stopped at a sweet bread bakery for some lunch. Once we made it to the National Park we purchased a National Park Pass (to
come in handy whilst in our motorhome) and drove to the visitor centre. We spoke with the rangers who told us we were very unprepared and needed long pants, torches etc to see the lava flowing into the sea. We decided to visit just the outskirts of the Kiluaea Crater and took some great shots despite the overcast weather. We decided we would come back the following day and see the remainder.
After the 2hrs drive home (including Chris driving and managing to spend half the time on the cats eyes on the side of the road) we got back to the hotel safely, stopping at Walmart for our super cheap torches (2 with batteries for US $3.50) and Wendys for a burger and chips for dinner.
We will update again in the next couple of days but feel free to leave any messages or questions about anything that has happened so far.
Take care all
Shane and Chris xo
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Matt A
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Hey guys, glad to hear you're having fun and have taken up the America Detox Diet! Sounds like you had a run in with Eduardo over there...Mister mister you hit me!! Hows the weather been? Have you guys managed to get a tan yet? Sydney's been sunny but we've got a cold rainy day today...