Pre-Christmas

Well, I think when I left off I was headed out on the bike to adventure the island a bit.

Step one was riding up Mauna Loa, the largest land mass in the world. A massive mountain sitting on the continental plate. This volcano is dormant but they say overdue for eruption. Was 20 miles up, took 6hrs and my 0 season tent ensured I felt the wind all night up at 10,000ft above sea level (The bulk of the mountain is below da sea)

The next day I hiked from the observatory I was outside to the summit, a huge snow covered culdera. Was great seeing snow in the tropics but I guess everest is the same latitude as Florida so it don't mean much. Hiked back down to camp and got another great night sleep on the lava rock.

Third day and I started around the 4x4 ring road that cuts around Mauna Kea. Manuna kea is an older volcano than Manua loa and so is more biologially developed. The road cut through disused and still used ranch land with some gum trees, native acacias and gourse bush. A state ranger listed off the the things that could kill me: wild dogs, pigs, poachers, etc but I was not to be discouraged. I rode 25 miles of the 44 miles road and camped at state cabins on the mountain. Was beautiful, looked like Australia (Overgrazed disused ranch land) and in the areas they had excluded cows the native hawaiian acacia was growing and I even found a blue gum forest which i plundered to have an aussie campfire. At the cabins was a mountain bike family who I basically left alone.

The next day I rode down off the hawaiian mauka lands (mountain lands) and along the coast. The rest of the mauna road was rough and I accidentally disembarked the bicycle twice and also buggered one of my paniers and had to stitch it back up whilst being watched by some very observant cows. Reaching down into Waimea I saw the bike family and they invited me to Christmas dinner, ah the gift of the gab. Rode down the Hammoukua coast, stopping for portuguese fried food to make up for 3 days of cans of beans and crackers since the TSA nabed by stove. The coast was stunning and the old highway followed the old cane train trusses which cut and zagged along the coast.

I pulled into kolekole state park as the sunset and was invited to drink beers with 3 vagabond locals in the tent shelter, they were living in the park. Charlie, Jimmy and Akon. We listened to the radio and talked story, among constant jokes about kangaroos and "Down under". I camped next to Akon and we ate avocados, drank cheap beer and smoked shake. He was a recovered meth head who had once been at school on the mainland on scholarship for football with his girlfriend who was also Hawaiian but she got pregnant and they moved back here and then he started doing meth and was an adict and now she has an AVO (restraining order) on him plus he has a bunch of other kids with his old lady (as opposed to his old old lady) whose parents dislike him. It was the night before christas eve. We listened to the rain and the radio in the park shelter.

Woke with the wild roosters and went with Akon to call his old lady to arrange to see them for christmas. We had avocados for breakfast and set some chicken snares in the hopes that he would catch one to sell to phillipino hawaiian cock fighters for $300 he could make the down payment on a public housing rental to get custody of his kids. I bid him fairwell and rode the old cane train rode to Hilo and arrived at Sharon's place ready for a shower.