Wednesday is the day I have been looking forward to the most on this trip. Yep, even more than the Ironman World Champs race on Saturday (I know how brutal that is going to be lol). Today I went out for an around the island day trip to see quite a lot of the major sights on the Big Island.

Before I came out here I had booked the Big Island Grand Circle Island Tour with Wasabi Tours Hawaii. It was a big day, 11 hours of sightseeing but given my short time on the island, I figured this would be the best way to see as much as possible. I didn’t want to come all this way and just spend the week in Kona not seeing what the Big Island has to offer.

The trip started off with the drive down to Kona and through the town before heading out to a Kona Coffee Farm and I have to say, this was something I was looking forward to. Who doesn’t love a good coffee right? and Kona Coffee is supposed to be one of the best there is.

As we climbed up the hills the views were just stunning and it was such a clear morning as well, you could see for miles.

I found the coffee farm tour really interesting. I couldn’t believe that they pick the coffee cherries by hand and only once the cherry has reached a specific ripeness. Often they would visit the same tree hundreds of times to check each cherry. Also amazed me that the coffee beans are then air-dried outside in the sun. The highlight has to be the coffee tasting, any coffee lover’s dream.

The next stop was at a bakery called Punalu’u Bake Shop and oh my god! their Lilikoi Glaze Malasadas are literally the best thing I have ever had sooo nice and that nice I had to have two. Carb loading lol.

Now filled with cake and buzzing off a coffee and sugar combo we continued down the west coast past an area called South Point and Punalul’u black sand beach. This beach is where the green sea turtles come in to feed around the rocks and come up on shore to lie in the sun. I didn’t see any on the beach but we could see two turtles just 20ft out to sea swimming around the rocks looking for food.

We had lunch at the beach then moved on to what has to be on everyone’s list of things to see and do in Hawaii, a volcano.

We went into Hawaii Volcanos National Park to see Kīlauea. This volcano is constantly active and was the one which erupted in 2018 causing so much destruction to one of the towns down here. The crater is so vast! a mile wide and two miles long and must be a good 500ft down to the crater floor. The crater floor was a few hundred feet higher before the 2018 eruption, it was this lava which emptied out of the chamber and ran through the lava tubes across the island.

We even got to walk through an old lava tube which was so fascinating to see and we dropped on lucky, this tube had only just reopened a couple of weeks ago.

Next on our trip around the island was the east coast. The Big Island has a very unique climate, the rains come in from the east but are stopped from reaching the west coast by the sheer size of the two 14,000ft volcanos in the middle of the island. This means that the west coast (where Kona is) is hot and dry, whereas the east coast is cooler and rainier thus completely changing the vegetation to more of a rainforest feel.

There are some great state parks around Hilo with some stunning waterfalls. First up we visited Rainbow Falls which was an 80ft waterfall, this looked pretty stunning but the next waterfall was on a different scale.

The second waterfall was called Akaka falls and is a bit more tucked away in the rainforest. The walk to the waterfall was only half a mile but the size of the trees, firn and bamboo was huge!

Then you turn a corner and you are greeted by this view! At 440ft it is hard to really see the sheer size of this waterfall in a photo but it was just stunning. By this point, it was pouring rain too which just added to the experience.

The final stop on the tour should have been at Waipi’o Valley lookout but this is currently closed or inaccessible due to locals protesting. The road down to the valley is a steep 25% decent and it is an old road which is crumbling away due to the volume of tourists driving down there. The locals who live in the valley are concerned by the number of tourists coming down and damaging the road, so much so that the road could become unpassable trapping the locals in the valley.

I totally get that and respect what they are protesting about. It would have been one of the highlights of my trip to see this valley but I also have to respect the land and the locals who will be there long after I have left. This is a photo I took off Google of what the view does look like.

So we continued on our way back around the north of the island and back to Waikoloa where I was dropped off and back in my room by 6:30pm eating pasta and starting to flag again.

Having been sitting in the van for long periods today I spent some time stretching out the legs and foam rolling. They didn’t feel that bad but it’s good practice to keep lose. I was in bed again for 9pm and another day is done.