Hawaii Day 3 - Hilo

The general gist of cruising around the Hawaiian islands is that during the day the boat is in port, so we can do whatever activities we like on the island, then overnight the boat will travel to the next one. Day 3 of our holiday we docked at Hilo on the island of Hawaii (not the state, the island).

The cruise company also has a whole catalogue of shore excursions you can book through them for each of the different ports. We felt that while booking through the cruise company (Norwegian Cruise Line) might be more expensive, it was worth it to remove all the hassle, particularly of getting back to the boat on time in the evening.

Our first shore excursion was the "Kilauea Hike & Volcano Odyssey", where a mini-van took us to Kilauea National Park and showed us the sights, and we also did a ~5km hike across old lava flows. Kilauea is the most active volcano in the world, and even as we were walking on it, lava was flowing down the other side. (It was too unsafe to actually walk on that side). We got to see lots of craters, some of which weren't all that unlike Tongariro National Park (to meet at least, Geology buffs will tell me otherwise) and the craters of the moon at Taupo. What was quite different was walking on the old lava flows. It was somewhere on this trip that Claire and I came up with a theme for some of the photos: "Spot the Adrian/Claire!". In some photos either Claire or myself are hiding in it somewhere, it's your job to find us. I'll only post the photos where it's fairly easy to spot us, so don't go getting the magnifying glass out if it isn't obvious where we are.

This tour also took us to the Macadamia Nut Factory, where they grow and can Macadamia Nuts. Did you know that Macadamia Nuts have the most calories per volume than any other nut? Claire and I learnt so much random trivia on this holiday. Did you also know that the state of Hawaii comsumes more Spam than any other state? You can get McSpamAndEggs for breakfast at McDonalds apparently.

We also visited a waterfall that wasn't far out of our way back to the boat. In fact nothing is all that far out of the way. This was the biggest island, and you could drive round it in under 4 hours.

For dinner that night we went to Paniolo's Tapas and Grill, a restaurant themed on Mexican food. Our waiter Orbille was really cool, and he claimed that I was the first person he'd ever seen finish the meal I had ordered. I can't remember what it was called, but it was huge and had lots of beans. I should also at some point mention the Aloha Nui breakfast buffet, where we would go pretty much every morning for breakfast. They had everything there! Loads of fresh tropical fruit , bacon and eggs, cereals, waffles, toast, pancakes, sausages, yoghurts and more I can't remember.

Again Claire and I finished the night drinking cocktails, this time at Mixers Martini Bar. This bar soon became our favourite, possibly thanks to the fairly eccentric bartender Eloy. That night we also discovered that the room service fairies sometimes come in to our room and "Turn down" the bed, and sometimes leave a towel folded into an animal. This time it was an elephant.

Some more Hawaiian Trivia that I still remember:
The Hawaiian state Tree is the Kukui Nut (Candle Nut) Tree, state bird the Nene Goose, state marine mammal is the Humpback Whale, state flower the Yellow Hibiscus, state color is red, and my favourite, the state fish is the Humuhumunukunukuapua'a. I love that fish.