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3rd Nov 2005
Ne ne ... at last and Akaka
3rd November, 2005
Awoke at 7 as we were on the ground floor and most of the people were attending breakfast … but finally went through to the melee at 8.
Its still raining !!!!! and its not a particularly inspiring day. I continued some diaries. Anne wanted to tour the gardens so donned waterproofs and set off photographing all the flowers . In addition to the Tennessee Moores, there was a Swiss family with delightful children who were great and were taking their extened travels well in their stride … though they were of an age when travel must have been challenging for the parents.
The Tennessees interrogated our movements of the night before.
They had not gone much further than the ranger base but it seemed that even that was a major departure from the norm. ‘If aar family could see us neow’ Mrs Tennessee informed us, in a deep south accent, ‘The’d be SO praad’. It was really touching.
We finally left at 10.30 … in the rain … but true to form and literally a couple of miles away we ran into clear skies and sunshine. Enquiries of the oracle at the B&B had revealed that the golf course offered the best opportunities for seeing ne ne. Sounded fair enough, so off we went. I stopped to chat up one of the starters and he pointed me towards a little dirt track to the side of the course. Yes, they did tend to be around and he had seen some this morning …. he said that we could drive down the track and see what we could see. Most golfers were on the front 9 at the moment but do keep an eye out for them. About a hundred yards down the track and busily grazing on the edge of a fairway stood a pair of ne ne. The wind was blowing a hooley (still) and I left the car to take a wide sweep along the edge and stalk them through the rough area against the wind. It all worked fairly well and risking huge fines and federal prosecution, I got within the 60 ft approach limit. They’re typical geese and as soon as I poked the lens out from behind a tree, the male stuck his head up in the air and watched closely, his mate just continued gobbling grass down her neck as fast as she could. I saw another three further over, obviously two males and a female – the males chasing each other around necks extended, once again, while the female busied herself on the nosh.
After this little triumph we went back into the park and along to the visitor centre. Nothing massively innovative but it had a nice interpretive piece on ne ne which I recorded on the ipod. We drove the crater rim once again, stopping to walk to the edge on a couple of occasions against the strong sulphur smell and buffeted about by the very strong wind. Walked through the Thurston Lava Tube, a short interpretive trail which takes you though native Hawaiian rain forest and the tube itself, which is about 400m long and lit. We left the park at about 1 and drove down to Hilo about 40 or so miles away. We finally escaped the wet and cold; I even had the heater on in the car I had got so cold and damp !! Our route was to take us north along the coast and we pulled in beside the botanic gardens to have a healthy lunch of a hand picked avocado and some cheese. How much better can lunch get?
Another highlight of the route was the Akaka Falls and we stopped to walk the trail and pay due homage; impressive falls and nice habitat surrounding – slightly difficult to get a good picture view but it allowed us to stretch our legs a bit.
When we returned there was a lady selling woodcut prints and we decided to buy a couple. Her spiel was eloquent but automatic …and slightly interesting because of it, she was on a bit of a loop and repeated certain phrases every minute or so … anyway there was a range of woodcuts with Hawaiian flora and fauna and some influenced by folklore.
Our next stop was Waimea and a look through The Parker Ranch shop – this is the one I said earlier was a bit like the House of Bruar. Some nice stuff but nothing went beyond temptation, mainly due to the fact that it was all very prominently branded ‘Parker Ranch’.
Back along the road we were lucky enough to see a short-eared owl (which I think is an island sub species) hunting its way along the roadside at dusk. It was only a glimpse of a few second and by the time I pulled in got the car turned and made another pass, it had either settled or moved on.
Back into Betsy’s well after dark. She had got her wireless access this morning so we got that all plugged in and set up.
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