South Point

Today, together with Makoto and friends, we created a caravan of three cars and headed to the southern most point of the United States, a place called South Point-go figure. It's about a one hour drive to the turn off from the highway and another 15 minutes to the point. During the drive we passed though the ever changing Hawaiian weather and topography....from populated, sunny south Kona where the road is maybe 1000+ feet above the ocean, coffee "plantations" are plenty and tropical foliage hugs the neighborhoods ; through an arid yet somewhat forested state park; on through a Mauna Loa lava flow of the early 1900's (where, in the 1960's, an oil company started a housing development of 11,000 one acre lots....on the lava field....Not sure I'd want to live there but you can own your own piece of Hawaii including an 1800sq ft home for about $90,000...no school and you'll need to catch your own rain water but there is electricity and the occasional ocean view...) and finally to the open, windy, grassy prairie of South Point.










Our reason for this adventure was not only to enjoy another beautiful day in paradise and to say that we've been to the southern most tip of the United States but also to visit Mahana Bay aka the green sand beach.
I'd read in a guide book that once you get to South Point you'll need to either off-road it (with a 4 wheel drive) or walk the last 2+ miles to the beach. With Daredevil Makoto in the lead vehicle (a LandCruiser) and us in a pretty much brand new, borrowed, 4 wheel drive (GMC) we off-roaded it. Although not the most dangerous thing one could do, seeing we were in a borrowed vehicle driving over sharp lava rock moguls, it wasn't the most leisurely of rides....
(the top photo shown here was a level part of the drive-looks easy, doesn't it?- I needed to check my fillings when we were through...)

As you can see from the middle photo..it was totally worth the 4-wheeling experience!
(those tiny black and white figures at the left center are the other 4-wheelers that braved the journey)

I really tried to get a good photo of the green sand but, as with most of these pictures, the photos do not so any justice to what we were seeing first hand (so I pilfered one from the internet...)
In person, the sand really is that green (and sparkly). It's from a mineral called olivine which, when in gem quality, is peridot..which happens to be our birthstone. The only green sand that came back with us was what stuck to our wet feet as there's a $500 fine for taking sand off this beach.







And do you see why I call him Daredevil Makoto?...That's him taking a leap from the rocks. Earlier in the day he jumped off the cliff at South Point...that's him climbing back up the rusty ladder....



*remember you can click on any photo to enlarge it*