Walking the Alanui Aupuni

The King's Highway. From back when Hawaii had kings.,

Lava rock as far as the eye can see.

I am staying at the Waikoloa Beach Marriott Resort & Spa (pictured above).  It is much much lower in key than the hyperactive resort on Oahu.  It's almost like All-America suburbia:

If All-America had giant fields of lava rock.

The fact that there is sharp, black lava rock everywhere here on the west side of the Big Island is what makes this place interesting.  It's like no place else I've visited in that regard.  Except, maybe, Iceland.  A warm, sunny tropical Iceland.  Which, then, whatever it might be, would not ICEland.

Time to walk the Alanui Aupuni.

This is a day where the agenda has but one line item:  Be lazy.  Actually, it has two line items.  The second is an evening luau, but that's for later in the day.  So, for the earlier part of the day, other than eating these delicious deep-fried doughballs from the Island Gourmet Markets of the Queen's Marketplace -- I had two -- one coconut, one mango -- the coconut was very good, but the mango was exceptional -- even by the standards that is the deliciousness of fried dough -- I wanted to walk the trail through the lava rocks.

The trail has a name.  It's the Alanui Aupuni, a groomed trail through the lava rock dating back to the mid-19th Century -- pre-statehood -- pre-U.S. territorial status -- from back when Hawaii was ruled by a king.

The above is the Abrader Quarry, from which sharp cutting stones were mined.

Lots and lots of lava rock.

Eventually, on this trail, you come to a crossroads.  Continue in the southerly direction and you end who knows where?  The airport 20 some miles south?  Make a right turn and head west toward the ocean and you come upon a shrine:

Yes, that is the shrine.  It is the Ke Ahu A Lono.  Translation:  the cairn made by Lono.  It is a "shrine" that marks the boundary point between the land of two different tribes.  But it is a shrine that commemorates what amounts to the rehiring of a prime minister who was wrongfully terminated because the king listened to jealous courtiers.  Happens all the time.

This goes back to the 1600's.

Having reached the southern boundary of the people who lived on the land in the vicinity of the Waikoloa Resort & Spa, I headed back north.  In search of petroglyphs.

This is the petroglyph area.  It's sandwiched in between two sections of golf course.  And it's not even historic sections of the gold course.

Can we be honest, here?  These were not particularly impressive petroglyphs.  In part, this is because I was not sure if I was looking at petroglyphs.

Up in Valley of Fire northeast of Las Vegas, the petroglyphs pop out at you.  They are impressive.  These?  I think the petroglyphs here are nothing more than carved lines in the lava rock denoting who knows what.

But I didn't really notice them.

It's time to adjourn this meeting on the Alanui Aupuni and reconvene at the hotel pool for an afternoon of R&R.