Pardon my absence, I have been busy visiting family over the holidays and gallivanting on my honeymoon in Hawaii. The fun part is now I have a ton of amazing photos from Hawaii to share with you along with a story about our trip.
We started off on the Big Island of Hawaii, and after a busy six days travelling and visiting family, we were ready for some serious R&R, honeymoon style. We arrived late on New Year’s Day after a long day of travel that started at 6:00 am mountain time and ended at 10:00 pm Hawaii time. For the first three nights of our trip, we decided to stay in Holualoa, which is near the Kona Coast on the Big Island of Hawaii. We chose Holualoa because it was a “tiny town in the art enclave of Kona coffee country,” and the idea of waking up to the smell of coffee sounded amazing (even from someone who doesn’t regularly drink coffee). We stayed at a cute little “perch” that resembled a tree house with a beautiful Lanai, or veranda, perfect for breakfast and evening wine drinking.
To our surprise, we were awakened by a rooster in the front yard cock-a-doodle-doodling. At first we thought it was the morning and the sun was about to rise, but then it went on all…night…long. Once the sun finally came up, we realized he started “doodling” at some ungodly hour and had kept both of us awake. As we were eating breakfast on the lanai we spied the culprit.
Not quite the way we wanted to kick off our honeymoon, but we went about our day anyways. We had plans to cover some serious grounds.
[cetsEmbedGmap src=https://maps.google.com/maps?saddr=Holualoa,+HI&daddr=Hapuna+Beach+State+Park+to:Kohala+Coffee+Mill,+Akoni+Pule+Highway,+Hawi,+HI+to:Pololu+Valley+Lookout,+Hawaii+270,+Kapaau,+HI+to:Waimea,+HI+to:H%C5%8Dlualoa,+HI&hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=19.925586,-155.852051&spn=0.777225,1.234589&sll=19.925586,-155.852051&sspn=0.777225,1.234589&geocode=Fd9AKwEdliS09ikJauxJf_FTeTFagBrx2VoySw%3BFRkIMQEdAU229iH5rday1n-C7ymNWe3IPYdTeTH5rday1n-C7w%3BFVHONAEdITS29iFJT7hImGUNnik1e8w6C31TeTFJT7hImGUNng%3BFbyZNAEd4mi39iHFOkcrdAnKOykrKVP0eHtTeTHFOkcrdAnKOw%3BFRCHMQEdjaO49ilzQJxOVp5TeTF3ihKhqd-8nA%3BFd9AKwEdliS09ikJauxJf_FTeTFagBrx2VoySw&oq=Hol&mra=ls&t=m&z=10 width=600 height=600 marginwidth=0 marginheight=0 frameborder=0 scrolling=no]The first day, we drove up to the northern part of the island where we visited Hapuna Beach, which is known as one of the top 10 beaches in the world because of its sandy beach, calm waters, and sunny weather (according to our guidebook).
We enjoyed the sun and the sand.
And we played in the waves for a while; they were far from calm. Playing in the waves brought me back to the times my family used to visit the Jersey shore in the summers and I would play in the waves for hours and hours; bogey boarding and diving under waves. It felt good to feel like a kid again.
After spending some time on the beach and picnicking with some sandwiches and a salad from the natural foods market, we drove further north to the Kohala Coffee Mill where we enjoyed one of the “best mochas on the island” before heading to the Pololu Valley Lookout.
Here we hiked down to the northernmost coastline of the Big Island, which featured a majestic black sand beach.
After that, we made our way back to Holualoa by way of Waimea on a windy road through the Kohala mountains. Along the way we saw plenty of grass grazing cattle.
While driving we were amazed at how quickly the vegetation changed from dessert to lush neon green pastures. Being that this was my first visit to Hawaii, I was quite amazed by that.
More to come…
Have you ever been to the Big Island of Hawaii? What was the highlight?
