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| It’s now time for the easiest day of
the tour, the 27 mile descent from Volcano, high up in the mountains,
to the palm fringed Pacific coast at Hilo. We had breakfast of tropical
fruits and bread of many colours, pink, green, orange, all made from
varieties of fruit from the island and some excellent Kona coffee.
The descent started quite chilly and I was struggling to stay in a
t-shirt but as I descended the warmer it grew until it was back to
normality and 85 degrees! The road gets busier the nearer you get
to Hilo but the shoulders are wide and mainly clear of rubbish and
glass, though there are a fair few lorries which make a terrible roaring
sound and are quite intimidating if they make it as they’re
passing you. Either side of the road is very high tropical vegetation
so there aren’t really any views until you reach the suburbs,
where Mauna Kea appears across the fields and the shoulder disappears.
There were some roadworks where I entered the built up suburbs and
I screamed past them with a strong tailwind, which was quite challenging
due to the volume of traffic and the fact that motorists here don’t
really expect to meet a cyclist doing 40mph+. Where the shoulder does
reappear it’s a mess of debris and glass and not a nice experience
at all. In fact, the whole route from the suburbs to the centre is
a nightmare. The road eventually becomes what can loosely be termed
a motorway with a grotty shoulder and cars continually turning right,
across your path. Plus, the vegetation obscures all sign of traffic
turning onto your road so you have to be extremely careful all the
way into town. |
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The long
descent from Volcano to Hilo |
Mauna
Kea from the Hilo suburbs |
Crazy
junctions, Hilo |
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| Once in town, the shoulder disappears completely
and you have to share road space with the traffic, which although
it isn’t going that fast, it’s heavy and at each junction,
cars and lorries will cut you up as they turn right. This is made
worse by the fact that to get past the right turn junction you have
to swerve out into the traffic, across the inside lane, to get into
a narrow, foot wide strip of cycle lane, which takes you past the
junction and you have to then swerve back into the side of the road,
across the traffic joining from the junction you’ve just got
past! Whoever designed this system needs shot! This nonsense and the
ramps up onto bridge parapets instead of wider bridges with shoulders
were the only complaints on the route and they’re only complaints
because of the quality of the roads on the other parts. If you had
the same quality in the UK, I don’t think too many people would
bother moaning about these two points! |
| Just as you’re about to give up and
get the bus though, the shoulder reappears just before Banyan Drive.
I made the mistake of turning left here, along the main road. I was
poised out at the front of the traffic, tensed and ready to spring
forward to sprint across the junction and swerve left but what I should
have done and what I had intended to do, was just go straight on at
the juntion and follow the quiet Banyan Drive along the sea front
into town. Eventually though, after passing some more roadworks with
police dotted about and some really crap shoulders full of glass,
I got a respite by going through the big car park at the canoe club
with their outriggers lined up on the grass. Out on the skyline, the
long arm of the breakwater had waves crashing over it now and then
and a couple of big outriggers were powering up and down the shore,
as the lazy waves, their power eroded by the breakwater, lolled onto
the lava blocks on the black shore. |
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Mauna
Kea from Hilo |
The waterfront,
Hilo |
Pacific
at Hilo |
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The road into the town centre is fringed
by palms with a backdrop of Mauna Kea, the telescopes just visible
on the summit, across acres of sloping green fields and it’s
hard to imagine that it’s 14000ft above you.
Hilo is a very nice place indeed, friendly and sunny, though it has
a reputation as a very wet place, being on the windward side of the
island and being caressed by the trade winds. While we were here though,
people were talking about El Nino and we hadn’t seen rain since
we arrived. It rained a couple of times at night but I didn’t
have to cycle in it throughout the whole trip.
The alternative food shop on the front sells superb smoothies and
has an interesting collection of health foods and books and I went
in, looking for cream, as I had developed a nasty sore on the inside
of my crotch. In the end, some vaseline eased it and I got round the
rest of the island without too much pain! I put it down to the heat
and sweat and some tight cycling shorts. I had another pair of looser
ones which seemed to help. |
We were staying at the Wild Ginger Inn, which
I reached across the “singing bridge”, which is a metal
grilled bridge across the river and takes you over Pacific waves running
under you and up the river. Turn left up a short incline, left again
and left again and the inn as at the bottom of the road, before the
white bridge. We weren’t allowed in until 3pm – it was
a chain owned place and I got the impression that the manager didn’t
really care about anything much, least of all guests. In the morning,
when I managed to lock myself out of the lobby, a sour faced local
woman, who looked like James Brown opened the door and gave me “another
bloody tourist locking himself out” look! We later met a couple
from England, at the B&B in Kona, who said that when they were
staying at the inn the previous year or so, there had been torrential
rain, which had flooded the town and what seemed like the entire insect
population had moved into the lobby of the inn and all the guests
had to be moved upstairs! It is a bit of a dive. The floor in the
room sloped towards the back of the building and the walls were paper
thin, as well as having a lana’i, which was a comunal walkway
outside the doors. A real shock after Macadamia Meadows and Lokahi
Lodge! It was also stifling, so we had to leave the ceiling fan on
but at least I could keep the bike in the room. We ate at MacDonald’s
that night!
Having said that, the Wild Ginger Inn is now under new management
as of January 2003, so I can't really comment on what it's like now,
though it can't be any worse! The new owner has had a spring clean
of James Brown lookalikes and sour faced managers and done some upgrading,
so hopefully it's better now.
Hilo is also at the mercy of Tsunamis though they’re rare but
the tourist literature advises you to read the front pages of the
phone book as it contains information on what to do and where to go
if a tsunami warning is issued and out along the road to Arnott’s
there are side roads leading uphill which are marked as escape roads.
I noticed an escape road while on Crater Rim Drive up at Volcano,
in case of an eruption and thinking about it, I couldn’t think
of a more dangerous place, while on a bike, than on an escape road,
chock full of fleeing motorists!
A fantastic place to stay, in the outskirts, is Maureen’s B&B.
Fantastic place and just across the road from a superb snorkelling
spot, thorughly recommended, as we found out on our last day on the
island. Hint – if you’re planning on a few days in San
Fransisco on the way back, don’t bother, stay at Maureen’s
instead and fly straight back! |
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On the
beach at Hilo |
Mauna
Kea from Hilo |
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