Although I still don’t like the way the Dodge had changed (into the Jeep Wrangler that I had swapped at Kona Airport) with its crappier fuel mileage than before, it is certainly useful to be mobile and flexible.

Yesterday I was out hiking on the Pali – I had never driven the Hilinapali road to the end at the outlook over the cliff, and this seemed the day to do it, although I was quite unprepared for the blistering heat and the strong wind out there. So hat, sunglasses and suncreen were the minimum. Initially I pondered doing the loop done the Pali (2500 ft elevation change) to one of the camping shelters at sea level and then in a triangle-type trail back and the same switchbacks up. It is only about 9 km, but still this proved way to far with my camera bag and the steep descent and the time I was taking to get decent photographs. Changing lenses and getting the right angle, you know me… So I hiked about halfway down the switchbacks and then back up again and took another half hour or so to hike another portion of the Ka’u desert trail, the one that would loop around to another of the Ka’u trails we had done during training on Day 22.

It was already getting late, and I wanted to be done at the Holei Sea Arch for a time lapse before sunset. On the drive down towards the end of Chain of Craters Road I noticed how busy the park is in late afternoon, once all the people from the Kona resort areas have arrived after noon, realizing how big the Big Island actually is and how long the drive takes. So I was in “good company” all the way down the road and took my time to explore some of the pullouts that I never had particularly paid attention to but now saw the tourist’s rental cars parked there I was getting curious, too.

Holei was not so busy, after all, I guess most people tried the end of the road, where it was covered by the Lava Flow in 2003 and earlier on. The sunset was behind Mauna Loa, but the clouds got lit up brightly and the sea from the top of the cliff was quite…. impressive and powerful!

Holei Sea Arch at the end of Chain of Craters Road

Monochrome panorama of Mauna Loa

Hiking and viewing the Pali

Today, then, I tried something different altogether: I went birding. The endemic Hawai’ian Birds and their evolution from just one type of finch is legendary, and I haven’t had the time and patience yet to try and get them with a “modified” 400 mm lens… I think I am still not that patient, but I gave it a shot – this morning at “Bird Park 21”, so called for its location at mile marker 21 up Saddle Road from Hilo towards Mauna Kea. Unfortunately, no-one had told me that the enclosure is currently closed for “danger of falling branches and trees”, and I had to make do from the outside. Tonight I tried our own bird park up Mauna Loa access road. See for yourself… for 1280 pixel cropped, this is actually very OK, but for agency full resolution requirements this is pretty nil (you are seeing the true 1280×850 or so crop of the full image, so I am still way too far from the birds