It’s almost time, folks! I’m leaving for Hawai‘i tomorrow!
I can hardly fathom how quickly the past six months have passed since I booked the trip.
My checked luggage is packed, and a daypack will double as my cabin baggage. First, I fly to Sydney with Qantas tomorrow morning, and then tomorrow night, I fly with Hawaiian Airlines to Honolulu, which takes about 9½ hours. From there, I will connect to a domestic flight across to Kona on the Big Island.
In a bizarre demonstration of how timezones work, I’ll arrive in Kona before leaving Sydney.
I have a hire car booked, which I’ll pick up just after I land at around 2:30 pm local time, and from the airport, it’s an 18½ km drive to my accommodation in Holualoa.
As some of you would already be aware, the thought of driving on the “wrong” side of the road has been on my mind for the past month, so I was happy to discover Kona Wine Market is situated in a shopping estate that I’ll pass by before I hit the busyness of town. It still means a left turn across Queen Ka‘ahumanu Highway, but you’re reading the ramblings of a woman who hiked through tiger-, leopard- and bear-infested forests in Bhutan, so I’m sure I can manage it. (OK, that’s a slight exaggeration because the bears were probably hibernating, and we didn’t see any tigers, but we did capture a leopard… on one of the trail cameras we set up.) Here, I hope to track down a bottle of Kō Hana rum (which features in By the Eye, By the Hand), as they are one of only a few stockists on the island, and whatever other alcoholic delights commandeer my attention while I’m browsing.
By a stroke of luck, Kona Wine Market is only a couple of blocks away from where I located the fictional White Gallery in By the Eye, By the Hand, so I’ll spend a few minutes exploring the area to make sure I’ve captured its atmosphere accurately but with a little artistic licence.
Also on the airport side of town is Island Naturals Market & Deli (thankfully to the right of the highway), where I plan to stock up on some essentials (e.g. some world-famous Kona coffee and Little Hands Hawai‘i reef-safe sunscreen, amongst other things) to tide me over until I can get to the Keauhou Farmers Market on Saturday morning.
Aside from alcohol and food, in that order, my other priorities for Friday afternoon are to find my guest house, unpack and settle in, go in search of dinner, and watch my first Kona sunset across Kailua Bay or perhaps Magic Sands Beach, and then have an early night. I hope to get a few hours of sleep during the flight, thanks to Prince Valium, but sleep evades me at the best of times, so I’m not counting on it.
Credit: Ken Lund (USA) CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
CHAPTER 21 EXCERPT
The speed limit increased to fifty-five. A sign told us the Kohala Coast was twenty-seven miles ahead. I would never tire or get used to the deceptive desolation along this stretch of highway. Empty but not featureless. Historic ‘a‘ā lava flows, matte and absorbing, contrasted against smooth and shiny pāhoehoe flows. A green and white sign reminded me of our first hike together in Kekaha Kai State Park, and I recognised the rise of Pu‘u Kuili in the distance. It was a prominent landmark in an otherwise flat landscape.