The day dawned bright and sunny.

We took a short walk around the property and enjoyed the frangipani we encountered along the way.

I wanted to visit a coffee farm and Diane wanted to visit a botanical garden, and it looked like we were in luck – there were two very near each other in South Kona, and both were named “Greenwell” (Greenwell Farms) and the Amy B. H. Greenwell Ethnobotanical Garden.

We got in the car and turned on the “Big Island Driving Guide” app I’d just bought (a companion to the guidebook we’d bought yesterday) so it could tell us about the things we were seeing along the way. We learned about lava, lava tubes, beaches and much more. Then it suggested we consider making a brief visit to the Kaloko-Honokōhau National Historical Park and we did.

After a brief stop at the park store, we set out on the Ala Mauka Makai trail, a short, easy one-mile trail that would take us to the ocean.

We stopped at the petrograph loop.

When we got to the ocean, the honu (green sea turtles) were resting near the shoreline.

We explored the area around the Aiopio Fish Trap (no longer in use except by swimmers).

Two hours after we’d arrived, we finally got back into our car to continue on our journey.

I’d found the Greenwell garden in an article on Love Big Island and I realized it didn’t give the hours of operation, so I opened the garden’s website. I couldn’t find hours of operation there, either! And when I tried to call them, the number had been disconnected. Oops.

Fortunately, there was another Kona garden listed in the article, the Sadie Seymour Botanical Gardens and it was right on our way, so we drove there instead. It wasn’t the best time to see the gardens, but there were enough flowers to make us happy, like this yellow hibiscus.

Then it was off to Greenwell Farms – we got there just after the last tour of the day had started, but we were able to join it in progress. They’ve been growing coffee for more than a century. They don’t just have coffee trees, though; I liked this orchid that was growing near the entrance to the coffee field.

They are one of the biggest coffee farms in Kona; they buy from other farmers in the area, too. Not all of the coffee cherries they buy (or grow, for that matter) meet their standards; the rejects go into a cart for disposal (there is a coffee boring beetle which is causing problems).

Our guide opened a cherry and showed us the actual beans inside – there should have been two, but this particular cherry had three; it would have been filtered out during processing.

They grow other fruit on the farm, too, like white pineapples and apple bananas.

They are responding to the coffee beetle by grafting – here are some coffee plants that they’ve grafted onto a resistant rootstock, much as Old World grapevines were saved by grafting them onto New World rootstock.

The tour ended with a tasting, of course, and I left with twelve ounces of pure Kona coffee to grind and brew at home.

And then it was back to the hotel, where I had to battle the TV to force it to let me use my Fire Stick…but that’s a story for another time.

Our Lyft driver arrived right on time this morning, and we were ready for him. I was pleased and surprised that he had the local classical radio station playing!

We had breakfast at “The Club at SJC”, then boarded our flight and were served second breakfast.

We arrived in Honolulu nearly an hour early (the captain said we had an unusually strong tailwind), which gave us more than enough time to wander around. There’s a replica of Senator Daniel Inouye’s office in the airport; we paid our respects.

A couple of hours later, it was finally time for the quick flight to Kona; I was surprised to find so much of the airport there outside!

We stopped at the Kekaha Kai State Beach to get our first good look at lava – cold lava, to be sure, but definitely a lot of it. This area only has a’a lava (the pointy kind).

According to the map, this area was hit by a big lava flow in 1801. It’s been re-colonized by plants, and even some cattle roam the area.

I guess we could have hiked down to the ocean, but we skipped it and drove to our hotel, Marriott’s Waikoloa Ocean Club. The view from our room is pretty good, though you can’t see much beach.

The lunch options at the Honolulu Airport were unappealing (and we had had two breakfasts!), so we were hungry by the time we’d unpacked. We walked down the beach to the Lava Lava Beach Club for an early dinner (the better to be seated without having to wait!). I had the Macadamia Nut Arare Crusted Fish of the Day (mahi-mahi) and Diane had Somen Ahi. Somehow, we had room left for dessert, so we split a Kona Coffee Cheesecake, too.

According to “Hawaii the Big Island Revealed“, the Lava Lava Beach Club rates an “Ono with qualifiers” because “it’s not the food you’ll remember, it’s the dreamy setting”. I agree; the food was good, but the setting was great. It was especially nice after they lit the tiki torches at the beachside tables.

We finished dinner and walked back to the hotel, enjoying the last few minutes of sunset.