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A Walkabout on the Beach in Waikiki and then "iflygo" to Hilo, Hawaii (Big Island)

We capped our spectacular day yesterday - December 20, 2007 - with another evening walk along Waikiki 's festively lit Kalakaua Avenue .

The 21st of December dawned as a day full of anticipation.

Today we were going to pull up our stakes in Waikiki on the island of Oahu and do what comes so natural here in Hawaii - change islands.

Since we had an afternoon departure time, we had a few hours to take a closer look at a part of Waikiki we had seen only briefly - the beach.

What is shocking about the beach in Waikiki is how small it is. This world famous stretch of trucked-in sand can't be more than a mile in length. That is a lot of fuss over a small beach. Having said that, it would seem that the world's other famous beach - Ipanema - in Rio de Janeiro does not seem to be much longer either.

Not only is the beach in Waikiki short in length, it is also surprisingly narrow as there is seldom more than 100 yards between the water and the end of the sandy beach . The tide does not seem to be much of a factor in changing the levels of the water. This is not the Bay of Fundy in New Brunswick .

Never mind the apparent short comings - on this morning we enjoyed the sunny weather and our stroll along America 's most famous beach. I suspect the people of Miami Beach would disagree with me.

We paid special attention to the neophytes taking their first surfing lesson on dry land. It looked pretty good to me, but it is a long way from surfing the Pipeline on the North Shore in more ways than one.

While we were enjoying ourselves checking out the beach, hanging in the back of our minds was this afternoon's flight from Honolulu to the town of Hilo , located on the Big Island .

Just to add a bit of confusion, Big Island is formally known as the island of " Hawaii ".

We therefore speak of the Hawaiian Islands (there are eight of them) or simply Hawaii (meaning the eight islands). Then there is the island of Hawaii , also known as Big Island . No wonder everyone seems to it refer to as Big Island .

As I mentioned in Blog no. 77 - Hawaii : Preparing For the Trip, Barbara had booked our inter-island flights with "Go Airlines" whose website is www.iflygo.com. A new airline established about a year ago, it has turned the inter-island airline market into a dog-eat-dog, cut-throat business by offering $39 (at the time) flights from one island to another. The result has produced a lot of red ink for the two largest air carriers in Hawaii - Aloha and Hawaiian Airlines.

We took the airport shuttle operated by Roberts Hawaii to the airport at $9.00 per person or $15 round trip.

Go Airlines is located in the Commuter Terminal which is a separate building to the east of the main terminal.

It is a crowded, one room, rectangular shaped terminal where the public address system is difficult to understand and the melee of passengers makes the waiting less than desirable. To reduce the stress level, allow plenty of time to pass through security.

Speaking of security, even though the rules are well known, it is still easy to run afoul of the regulations . My most blatant oversight was to forget a Swiss-army knife knock-off in the outside pocket of my carry on backpack. At that point it is history even though it had been a useful tool to us in the past. Fortunately it was a knock-off and not the real thing.

The weather was excellent for our flight and it is a pleasure flying over the brilliantly azure Pacific Ocean and within a short time we skirted the emerald green patches of land which were Molokai , Maui and finally Big Island .

This would be our longest inter-island flight as we flew from Honolulu in a south-east direction, a distance of 216 miles.

The most stunning part of the trip is flying along the north-east coast of Big Island ( Hawaii ). The coast line of the island has some very high and stunning sea cliffs. The blue ocean, the massive, red sea cliffs and the green fields above make a breathtaking scene as the plane proceeds along the coast to the town of Hilo .

Within a short time of our arrival, we had picked up a Chevrolet Cobalt from Budget Car Rentals and we were on our way to the hotel .

The Chevy Cobalt turned out to be an excellent choice as a rental car as it drove very well and was quite comfortable. Like I wrote in an earlier blog, low priced American cars are not what they used to be - they are much better.

Hilo is located on the windward side (north-east) of Big Island .

When not living on an island, the concept of windward or leeward has little relevance. However, in the Hawaiian Islands , the concept becomes painfully obvious as the windward side of the islands get a lot more rain than the leeward side.

So it was that Hilo welcomed us with rain. This welcome was extended more or less for the three day duration of our stay here. Not surprisingly, there are rainforests in this area of the island.

The words of my friend Wilf Schwarz " Hawaii gets a lot of rain at this time of year" (Blog 77) seemed to be ringing in my ears.

We dealt with it by pretending the rain did not exist. We had an agenda in the Hilo area and we were not going to let rain deter us or get us down.

As it turned out, this was a good strategy, as often the rain would stop long enough to allow us to do and see what we had intended to . Even more surprising was that at certain crucial points of our sightseeing, the sun would even peek out from behind the clouds.

As we left the airport and headed towards the Hilo Seaside Hotel, located on historic Banyan Drive along Hilo Bay , we were somewhat apprehensive as to what the accommodations would hold in store for us.

For a $100 a night, the accommodations at the Waikiki Shores Hotel in Waikiki were nothing to write home about. It was only a roach that saved our bacon so to speak. (Blog 80: Waikiki Beach - Scream and Stomp)

The price at the Hilo Seaside Hotel was also around $100 a night, so the likelihood of writing home about it was also slim. (the prices today - March 15, 2008 start at $72).

That speculation turned out to be somewhat true. Upon seeing our room at the Seaside , there was nothing really negative about it, but there wasn't anything to create a comfortable feeling either.

With time, the Seaside grew on us. We recognized it for what it was - an older property which was being extremely well maintained by a caring staff. But, there is only so much that can be done with an older property in need of some major capital expenditures.

A roach appearing in our room would also have been useless here as the rooms appeared to be about the same throughout the hotel.

At first I was disappointed that we got a room at ground level as I thought a room at the second or third floor would be more secure. That disappointment was offset by the view from our room over a large pond that complemented the Hawaiian and Japanese garden which decorated the front of the hotel .

We were never alone as there was always a school of koi hovering in the pond outside our window.

Other than the view of the pond and the gardens, our room provided a peek onto nearby Hilo Bay . On more than one occasion, this view was made spectacular by the passage of giant cruise ships as they made their way to a morning rendezvous with the Hilo Cruise Harbor .

My use of the word "morning" pretty well summarizes the hotel room. That and the evening was about the only time that we spent in the room. For that, it served its purpose well.

Reading some of the way-over-the-top negative reviews of the hotel on the Internet since having been there, one would get the impression that it was a complete dump. One was entitled "Travel to the Third World without a Passport" another spoke of rooms which "stank". This is after all a very humid climate and the smell of heavy humidity cannot be eliminated without air conditioning and it certainly was too cool to run the air conditioning.

Finally it was useless to second guess our booking as at the time the Hilo Seaside Hotel and nearby Uncle Billy's Hilo Bay Hotel were the only two available in our price range . At that time we made a choice based on the reviews but not apparently the reviews which I mentioned earlier.

On second thought, perhaps the final line should be that we slept well during the four nights that we stayed there.

Hilo is a mandatory stop of any Hawaiian tour because it is the point of departure to one of Hawaii 's greatest sights which is only 35 miles from here. We will be going there tomorrow.

The main street of Old Hilo - Kamehameha Avenue (named after Hawaii 's first king) - makes for an interesting walk back into history, as every building seems to date to the turn of the 20th century. Back then, sugar was the main industry on the island and the historical core of this former plantation town is considered to be the best preserved in Hawaii . Walking the main street is an interesting place to browse and also to stay dry as most of the side walks facing Hilo Bay are covered by building overhangs. Come to think of it, this is a prime example of architecture adapting to the climactic conditions of an area .

Hilo , with a population of 40,000, is Big Island 's largest city and its economic and cultural center - after all it does have a Costco store and a major museum.

Coming Soon: Hawaii Volcanoes National Park

now posted:

Vancouver : Commercial Drive and the Seven Wonders of Canada