Hawai'i - Day 2

 I woke up super early and couldn't go back to sleep, so I went grocery shopping around 5 am and by the time I got back everyone was starting to wake up. After a quick breakfast in the condo, we headed down to explore the grounds of our condo. This lava rock coastline was beautiful! We loved the waves crashing against them, the variety of crabs we found, and looking for fish just below the surface! 

We decided to go find a good beach to relax at for the morning. But first we stopped at Kona Coffee & Tea for the famous KONA coffee. Then checked out google maps and found a white sand beach that wasn't too far, we thought....

We luckily had rented a truck to make sure we had enough room for all our luggage, but it came in extra handy when we realized the "road" we had to drive down to get to this beach. We had no idea what we were getting ourselves into, haha!

This is what we were driving over....it was rough to say the least! We were laughing the whole time because we all kept getting toggled around. Once we got the parking lot, we were surprised at some of the cars that had made it too!

But when we finally arrived, this is what we found!! Totally worth it!

We even spotted a Seal, which a sign further down the beach explained that it was one of 5 left in the area, so don't touch them as they are becoming extinct! Very cool to see in the wild knowing how rare they are!

We decided to take this path, as there were signs of an even better beach out there where those palm trees were.

Again, totally worth it.....

We played there all morning and then packed up to head back to the condo for a quick lunch and then off to surfing lessons (that I had booked in advance). Once we were in the car though, the surfing people called and said the waves were weak today and asked if we'd like to reschedule, so we did. I would have stayed much longer at this beach had we known, but we were hungry so we stopped by Costco to grab more food and snacks. I had read online it was the best place to get poke for a decent price, so we loaded up!  We also found macadamia nuts, papaya and Hawaiian sodas that were super low in sugar. 

After lunch we headed to the Greenwell Coffee Farm Tour, they give free tours on the hour all day long. We sampled the coffee and saw the grounds, of which they had way more than just coffee. We saw banana trees, avocado trees, cocoa, pineapple, peppercorn, and lots of beautiful flowers!

From there we headed to Pu'uhonua O Honaunau National Historic Park, where we learned more about how the Hawaiian islands were discovered and some of the rituals. 

And then we headed into downtown Kona for dinner that evening, we stopped in quite a few shops and ended up at the Cheeky Tiki which overlooked the water. Our first full day was amazing and going to be hard to beat!