There was an abundance of wildlife along the fairways. I did a little research because the Hawaiian wildlife seemed strange to me. When I saw hundreds of little yellow birds, I thought of my Mom, her favorite song was always, "Yellow Bird." I was leaning out of the cart every chance I got trying to snap one good shot of them before they would fly away. Then there were the Hawaiian Geese, (Nene's) baby lambs and sheep, black goats and beautiful big turkeys strutting their colorful feathers. There were times when we were hitting our ball with a turkey or sheep standing right there next to us.
There were a couple of very unique trees throughout, one being the Monkey Pod Tree, that looks a lot like a member of the Bonsai family and the Hong Kong Orchid.
We've visited a number of remarkable places over the past couple of days. Hapuna Beach and Mauna Kea Beach are two of the few white sand beaches on the west coast of the Big Island.
Hapuna Beach has been named the Number One beach in America by Conde Nast Traveler Magazine. There's a park associated with Hapuna Beach, free to residents of Hawaii and $5 for visitors, and a picnic area, camping, restrooms and showers. The beach has a smoothie bar, snack shack and nice restrooms for changing into your bathing suit. There were a lot of people boogie boarding and body surfing. The waves were big, as they have been throughout our whole trip. It's located just between the Mauna Kea Resort and the Mauna Lani Resort on the Kohala coastline.
There's a walking trail that runs behind Hapuna Beach along the cliffs and you can see the island of Maui on a clear day. We stopped by Mauna Kea and viewed their fabulous golf course and took pictures of the private beach they have for residents. Just for the fun of it, we checked to see what the nightly rate to stay there was, and found out it was $450/night! Yikes! We won't be staying there anytime soon, however we did have a drink in their ocean front bar, The Copper Bar.
We found a real hidden treasure along the way home that we wouldn't have found on our own. Thanks to the Valet at the Mauna Kea, he suggested eating at the Pesto Café. It's in the Kawaihae Shopping Center. The menu features fresh local seafood, pizzas, salads and has an Asian flavor for pastas and risottos. Jean and I had the Hebi fish on a salad. Hebi is a spearfish and they describe it as a nutty, citrus and chicken-like. It's firm and cooks up white.
We've eaten a lot of fish on this trip, but still not having had our fill, stopped at the Hale I'A Da Fish House after lunch. Our friends Rod and Sandy Kehl recommended this little hole in the wall, renowned for fresh fish. Jean picked up some Monchong to cook for dinner the next night.
The beautiful Kona Sheraton was another place we stopped and got in on some more great views.
We were finishing up our packing this morning when I looked at my phone to find an email from United Airlines. It said our flight was going to be delayed and we wouldn't be leaving now until the following day. So... sadly we are forced to spend another whole day in Paradise. We are very grateful that Ed and Jean were staying an additional two nights, so our accommodations were not impacted. Imagine the poor folks that had checked out of their hotel.
Oh well, you have to take what life throws at you. Did I mention that United upgraded us to First Class for our inconvenience on our return flights to Las Vegas?
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