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| Oh well, last day of the cycle tour and what
a day too! The route from Hawi to Kona os the IronMan route and it’s
well maintained, apart from the shoulders in Kawaihae but that place
is the main port for the area, where Mark Twain sailed into on his
tour of the big island. It’s a busy town and very dirty to boot. Not too early start on this, the last day, out past the excellent cake shop in Hawi and down the road, broad clean shoulders and a screaming tail wind, slightly uphill but hardly noticing it. I passed two tandems heading the other way and we exchanged hearty greetings – cyclists are very friendly here and shortly after, I passed an elderly chap coming down out of side road and heading after me. He passed me as I came up the bank from a pee stop, balancing on spiky a’a lava behind some scraggy bushes. I then caught him up and we exchanged some pleasantries – he was a local (haole!) and was out for a run to Kawaihae and back and as we peched up a hill, with the wind at our sides and occasionly head-on, he turned to me and remarked that his heart rate was up to 150 and that his legs weren’t up to fast climbing anymore – we were doing about 15-20 mph uphill. I had 5 days of hilly cycling behind me and he was obviously very fit – he was also 72! I hope I’m like that if I get to that age! We eventually separated on a fast downhill, Hualalai in the distance, as I sped down into a strong wind to Kawaihae and the grub stop. Here I filled up with the last of their ham rolls and headed back out through the busy town. I didn’t like Kawaihae at all. Too industrial and dirty with crappy shoulders, wide but covered in glass and loud heavy lorries passing every two seconds. Horrible! It had the dubious distinction of being the first place in Hawai’i that I locked the bike – outisde the shop. Turned right at the juntion, onto the main road to Kona and from here on in it’s busy busy busy. Lots of traffic and trucks but the shoulder is wide and clean the whole way. |
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| This was also the fastest I’ve ever
done a 60 miles – about 4 hours! The reason? A SCREAMING tail
wind. I’ve NEVER seen the like of it! It’s flat most of
the way and I was doing about 40mph, WITHOUT PEDALLING! I passed a
road works sign, one of those plastic diamond kite-shaped thingies
on a bendy pole. It’s a big thing but it was bent parallel with
the road by the wind! Approaching one junction took some fine judgement
as a lorry overtook me, just, as he wasn’t going much faster
due to the wind pushing me along – he overtook, I feathered
the brakes just enough to let him cut across and down the side road
and I screamed past the junction, “taking the lane”, as
it was too full of bollards staying on the shoulder. I passed it doing
45mph+ This part of the road is completely flat, crossing incredible, vast lava flows from Mauna Kea and Launa Loa, jaggy a’a as far as the eye can see in all directions. If it wasn’t for the wind, I dread to think what the temperatues must have been. As it was, I was soaked with sweat and that was without pedalling, just letting the wind push me along! |
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| I eventually came to a slight uphill, heading above Kiholo Bay, where I nipped into a parking spot and had some lunch, the bike propped against the low wall, just out of the wind or it would have been blown over. I had to keep a tight hold of everything – gloves, helmet and all that or I would have seen the last of them! I think it’s Harrison Ford’s house down by the bay. There was a white crescent of clean sand, the only break in the black lava shoreline of spiky cliffs and plains. In front of the crescent, the sea was a light green, over the sand, eventually blending to dark blue, flecked with breaking waves, surging south under the power of the wind. A house sat behind the sandy crescent, surrounded by tall palms. What a place. It’s also the birthing grounds of the humpback whales. A more beautiful spot on the plant I couldn’t think of at that precise moment. | ||||||
| From here all the way back to Kona, it gets progressively busies and dustier. Hazy houses way up on Hualalai across black a’a fields on the left, beach resorts and grotesque hotels on the sea front on the right. Apparently some of them were built by the Japanese, who are now bankrupt and the places are being snapped up by entrepeneurs at silly prices. One of them has a fake lagoon with dolphins trapped in it for the gratification of fat Americans tourists. | ||||||
| Endless traffic lights near the end. At the
final set, a female motorcyclist was lying in the road, without a
helmet – they don’t have to wear them here. The traffic
was trying to get past while some people did what they could, waiting
for the ambulance. Don’t know the outcome. By coincidence, I
passed Dawn here so I signalled I was going to the bike shop. Just after the lights, I stopped the bike, straightened up, smacked the dust from my clothes, wiped the sweat from by face, picked it up and walked down the short path to the bike shop. The tour was over. I treated myself to a volcanic cycling shirt and a couple of “ride the rock” t-shirts and why not?! Dawn came in and we headed up to the B&B off Palani Road. Glad I decided to cycle round the island. |
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