14/12/12 – How many more children must die before the laws change?

We woke this morning to the news of another massacre in a school, this time in Connecticut. Two things disturb me about this terrible event. Why is it so easy to get a gun in the USA and what sort of sick culture (and irresponsible parenting) is it that allows elementary school children, who have just witnessed the slaughter of dozens of their young friends, to be approached to give a TV interview to a macabrely probing reporter detailing what they saw and heard?

The TV interviews about the shooting in Connecticut are unrelenting so to escape them we decided to go for a drive and listen our CD recording of the classic hits of Iz (Israel) Kanakewewole.

 But first we drove down to Hilo to locate a VERY BIG box in which to post Alistair and Lizzy’s Christmas gift back to Perth. It took us a while but in the end we managed to accomplish this task and from there we set off north to have a look at the sights and gauge the size of the island of Hawaii.

As we travelled up the north east coast the jungle was lush and the rivers ran in deep ravines with waterfalls that often emptied their waters directly into the sea. Then almost inexplicably the land became dry and flat as we entered ‘cattle’ country. This is the location of the largest Texas long horn ranch in Hawaii. It felt odd to see cattle grazing in open paddocks on an island we thought would be covered in jungle. It continued to be dry and rocky around the tip and over to the western side until we hit the other major town - Kona. It was a bit like Cottesloe – lots of shops and the sun setting into the ocean and a bit like the Gold Coast with the hotel guests jostling for the best seats at the luau at the Royal Kona Resort. 

Fortuitously we managed to grab some seats three from the front we found ourselves sitting (perhaps not surprisingly given the exchange rate) next to a group of Aussies. Peter was a little sceptical of what were we about to see and eat but he was impressed on both fronts – even the poi and pig were tasty! (Mai tais were good too!) The performance included dancers from all of the Polynesian islands but the show stopper wasn’t the Tahitian girl whose hip gyrations were amazing but the Samoan fire eater and the ‘fire stick spinner’ guy.  

After the show we continued our trip around some windy ocean roads south and then back up the east coast to Hilo. As has been the case for the four days we’ve been here, the top of the mountain was sitting in a cloud of continuous rain (they get over 200 ins per year up here while other parts of the island get less than 10 ins.)

All up we had driven for 4hours and had covered nearly 500 kilometres, which was much faster going than would be the case the next day.