Ireland day 0983. Friday 07 June 2024- Big Island 6

Today’s summary	Drove a short way down the hill and then parked on the coast to walk to the Keei beach – just visible from our guest house. Time for a quick swim and then snack lunch in the shade of the trees. Cup of coffee at Honaunau poke shop. Very relaxing
Today’s weather	Hot and dry on the coast. Some cloud which cleared later. Cooler away from the coast. Light westerly wind. Appx 31c on the beach, 25c at the guesthouse

Today’s overview location (The green mark shows the location of our route)		Close-up location (The orange line shows where we walked) (Click button below to download GPX of today’s walk as recorded, or see interactive map at bottom with elevations corrected): Keei Beach

Commentary

(Summary blog only. Last full blog was Day 0368).

We decided to have a relatively quiet day today, staying close to base and exploring our local environs. So once we had enjoyed our breakfast and caught up with what was going on in the world (which feels a million miles away at the moment, I must say), we packed our swimming things and headed for the beach.

The host at our guesthouse pointed out from the lanai a small beach, right at the bottom of the hill, which was said to be quieter than the more commercialised beaches in the north west of the island. So we jumped into the trusty Nissan Almera (actually another fairly horrible boat-like car) and trundled down to the road to the end of the dirt track which leads to Keei Beach.

Even though I don’t like the car very much, I decided it probably wouldn’t be a good idea to subject it to the rocky track to the beach, so we parked at the end of the road and walked down Keei road to the eponymous beach. You have to go through a few houses to get there, but once you reach the beach it’s lovely. Once of the locals even gave us some fresh lychees that he’d just picked, which was kind of him and they were particularly delicious with a good dollop of sunshine on the coral white beach.

We settled in the shade of a tree and got into our swimming things. (Not a coconut palm I should add – it is said that more people are killed every year by falling coconuts than die in shark attacks. Though this statistic was apparently concocted by the shark protection league and has been debunked by the coconut protection league so you don’t really know what to believe). The Pacific was lovely, as it always is here provided you are well away from the breakers and reefs (and coconut trees and sharks). We even caught sight of a couple of turtles splashing about as we were swimming.

Once refreshed by the sea, we had a snack lunch in the shade then hiked back to the car. We drove up to the Mamalahoa Highway and found a poke shop to get a cooling iced coffee which felt much needed after our seaside exertions.

(By the way “poke” is a kind of Hawaiian sushi and it’s pronounced “pok-ey”.)

Now we’re back on the lanai again (we do seem to spend a lot of time here) with a cup of tea and a brownie, contemplating our expanding waistlines and dinner options. But first it’s time for a wash and brush up in the outdoor showers. A wonderful day, again.

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


A field of aa (spiky) lava on the road down to the beach	And a volcanic exploration wouldn’t be complete without a bit of pahoehoe (ropy) lava too!

*Magnificent Gardenia sootepensis* – smells amazing and one of only a relatively few plant species that have seven petals in their flowers**	Curious marine creature – I couldn’t tell if it was a starfish or an anemone. It was about 10cm across and I definitely didn’t want to tread on it.

Dragonfruit cactus flower – they are gigantic and only come out at night	On the terrace of Honaunau Poke poke shop – enjoying iced coffees after a hot afternoon on the beach

Location of Keei beach shown by the red arrow, as seen from the lanai of our guesthouse