Blogs from Kailua-Kona, Big Island, Hawaii, United States, North America - page 5

And off we went.. Bit of a strange start to the morning as we learned the day previous that Taj had been elected sports captain for the following year - this meant that there was no way we were heading to the airport without first heading to school to the morning assembly to see Taj jump onto the stage and be announced.. Words cannot describe how proud I am of this little man, he struggles with sport having a muscle disease but he does what he can and has a go.. Proud is an understatement.. Then we were very quickly off to the airport - the boys singing the beach boys "Hawaii, Hawaii, let's go to Hawaii" along the way.. From Newcastle Airport we flew to Brisbane via Qantas.. I'm not a lover of these small ... read more

The Plan We've visited the island of Oahu many times, but never any other Hawaiian island. So last year when I got a call from Hilton Vacations offering six nights at the Hilton Waikoloa Village on the Kailua-Kona coast of the Big Island for a very low price we decided to take the deal. The resort is situated on the northwestern side of the island. We planned four day trips to see every part of the island, with the days for each trip depending upon the weather: - a short day to Kailua-Kona and surrounding area. - a short day to the Kawaihae Coast (northwestern side), as far as Hawi and the Polulu Valley Overlook, and then inland to Waimea and ranch country; - a medium length day along the Kona Coast (southwestern side) to the ... read more

Day 20 – Jan. 30, 2015 – Port of call: Kona, HI on the Island of Hawai’i – Weather forecast: partly cloudy – temperature: 75°F/24°C – actual: 84°F/29°C and sunny down at sea level but later in the morning up on the mountain the clouds descended on the peak Today we were required to use the tenders once again as there is no deep-water pier for docking on this side of the big island. Once ashore we met up with our drivers and the two twelve passenger vans that we would be using on our four-hour shore excursion entitled: Kona Coffee, Gold Coast & Cloud Forest Adventure. The official description stated that on the slopes of Hulalalai Volcano we would enjoy a 1¾-hour walk through a 70-acre tropical cloud forest sanctuary. Then enjoy a tour of ... read more

The day after the conference in Honolulu (Honolulu is located on the island of Oahu) I left for the island after which the entire chain of islands is named: Hawaii. For clarification Hawaii is often also called Big Island and there is some truth in the name because it is in fact the biggest of all the islands and all of the other islands would easily fit into this one. Hawaii is the southern most of the islands and also the youngest one. The islands exist due to a hot spot in the crust of the earth across which one of the tectonic plates our earth consists of move from southeast to northwest. So Hawaii, the youngest island, is in the southeast, whereas the oldest islands, Kauai and Lanakai, lie in the northwest and will gradually ... read more

We landed at the Kona airport, right around twilight. After being off the plane for no more than 5 minutes we both declared "we should move here". There was a nice warm breeze, it didn't feel humid even to us coming from Arizona and the airport was all open-air. The security area, ticket counter, baggage claim; all outdoors with random thatched hut looking coverings. It was awesome and very inviting! After we got our rental car, we started our drive up to the rental house. Up, up, up we went in a fast ascension through the cloud forest, along winding roads. The house was even better in person! Beautiful and spacious and clean and airy and homey and charming. A hot tub, fireplace, soaking tub, homemade ceramics, high vaulted ceilings, humongous lanai with views, spacious yard ... read more