Tropical Rain
Yes, today was the first day of any kind of precipitation we’ve experienced since we’ve been here in Hawaii. It was still really hot and sticky but the heavens were opened and it rained for most of the day. It didn’t stop us from having fun though!
Keryn and I started the morning (before it rained) with a nice long walk around the neighbourhood. It didn’t take long to work up a healthy sweat and it was so nice walking along the quiet, almost rural, streets of Wailua, checking out all the gorgeous Hawaiian houses along the beachfront, admiring their colourful floral painted letterboxes, volcanic rock walls and their high hibiscus hedges. The mountains were shrouded in cloud and looked surreal as our backdrop. Every single car that passed us along the road gave us a friendly wave and we came across a few fellow-walkers, who greeted us with a friendly hang loose or an “aloha”. Wailua does have a real hippy feel to it.
We were keen to visit the local sugar mill, where there was a coffee plantation and some local Hawaiian produce. Jack Johnson mentions this very sugar mill in one of his songs so we were a bit excited about that. We’re living in hope that we might come across Jack walking his dog or hanging out at the supermarket. No such luck yet. Anyway, we lined up for a tour of the coffee plantation where we got to taste coffee beans straight from the tree! They were quite slimy and tasted sweet and creamy like iced coffee. It was really interesting to find out about all the processes the coffee has to go through before it gets to us. We also got to taste a cocoa bean, firstly straight out of the pod, which was also really slimy, and then once it had been dried out. The drying out process gave it the texture of bark but it actually tasted and smelt just like chocolate! (funny that, since that’s what it was!) It was quite bitter like dark chocolate but it tasted good. Some of the kids, who were expecting it to taste like a glass-and-a-half-of-full-cream-dairy-Cadbury-goodness, had their expectations dashed but most of us thought it wasn’t too bad. The coffee plantation seemed like a pretty low key sort of operation but their coffee, which we sampled later on, was really nice! We learnt the difference between Arabica coffee and Robusta coffee and about the special coffee “berries” called “peabodies” that have only one bean inside instead of two, with concentrated flavour. Now I know all the effort that goes in, it will make me appreciate my next cappuccino so much more!
The Dole Plantation was our next destination, the North Shore’s famous pineapple plantation which our GPS, Gloria, described as “a real pineapple experience”! She also said it was a place where we could get “anything at all that was pineapple related”. She was right! If it had anything to do with a pineapple, it could be found there! The Dole pineapple whip was to die for and is apparently world famous (deservedly so!). Chelsea tried a giant chocolate coated piece of pineapple on a stick and said it was equally delicious. It was a shame it was raining fairly hard by the time we were contemplating a tour of the pineapple plantation so we just looked around the gift shop and took in the pineapple sights. Something that caught Toby’s eye were the Macadamia Nuts With Spam! Unlikely bedfellows in anyone’s book (but obviously not the Hawaiians’!). Spam seems to have a rather elevated status in Hawaiian culture. Perhaps we Australians underestimate the culinary pleasures of this hybrid of sandwich meats? The other day we were driving past McDonald’s and there was an oversized banner along the perimeter of the restaurant highlighting and even applauding the brand new menu item: Spam croissants. I guess we can’t knock it until we try it!
We had rather a laid back, Hawaiian style afternoon here at Camp Homelani. Keryn, Adam and Ross all partook in a timely nanna nap. I collected frangipanis and attempted to make my own leis but my lack of a needle to thread them onto the string, meant that my plans were thwarted. It didn’t stop me from marvelling at all the different colours and shapes of the gorgeous frangipanis that are dotted around the place. One tree has the brightest pink flowers I’ve ever seen! Wish I could sneak a cutting through customs!
Molly, Ebony, Chelsea, Georgia and Maisy found some coconuts and spent a good couple of hours trying to crack them open! They even resorted to shooting baskets with them on the basketball court hoping they might eventually break open with the impact. Alas it wasn’t as easy as they’d first thought. Their perseverance should be admired though and e-v-e-n-t-u-a-l-l-y Molly got one open! Phew! There was much rejoicing amongst the kids (except for Chelsea who’d hoped to drink the milk but Molly’s method of smashing it as hard as she could on the concrete, meant that wasn’t going to happen unless she slurped it off the ground!) Toby, Sam and I had fun on the basketball court and then threw the gridiron ball around while the girls played hide and seek and climbed trees. Camp Homelani is set on 9 acres so there’s loads of room to run around and explore. There are lots of resident roosters and chickens (all over the North Shore actually) and some of the biggest snails we’ve ever seen. The girls adopted a snail and named him Peter and his shell is like a pretty cone shell you’d find at the beach. We were just hanging loose like the locals!
This afternoon we popped into Haleiwa to grab some bread from the supermarket and I just jumped out of the car and ran in, leaving the others in the carpark since it was raining. Armed with a couple of loaves of fresh multigrain, I ventured into the carpark and made a beeline for what I was sure was our car – Dodge. I confidently reefed the back door open and leapt into the car, closing the door behind me, shaking the rain off in the process. Upon closer inspection of the interior of the car and its occupants, particularly noting the baby capsule directly on my right and looking up to see a very charming young man in a striped shirt smiling at me, it dawned on me with rapid realisation that I WAS IN THE WRONG CAR!!! Oh my gosh! I was sitting in the backseat of someone else’s car! It’s safe to say the striped shirt guy was highly amused at my slip up. I made a profuse apology declaring the blaringly obvious “I’m in the wrong car!” followed by a very hasty exit out the car door hoping I hadn’t woken the baby. I further compounded my embarrassment by standing in the rain in front of striped shirt guy’s window mouthing “WRONG CAR!” with an over-exaggerated double arm shrug, accompanied by high eyebrows, just in case he hadn’t already realised. In typical Hawaiian style, he just kept on smiling and didn’t seem to mind at all! I raced to find the real Dodge and jumped in faster than you could say “you’re a total idiot Sarah” and found my own family had witnessed the whole ordeal and were still rolling around in side-splitting laughter as I entered the car! Toby said he thought the guy may have suspected I was trying to perform a car jack. I’m not sure how often that’s performed from the back seat Tobes. Now when I say all American cars look the same, you’ll know I’m not joking!
Tonight we dined at Joe’s Seafood Grill, right near the bridge at Haleiwa, complete with fire torches and a sprawling green lawn leading down to the little bay where there are some boats moored. The rain had subsided and it was a warm, perfume-filled night. Our waiter, Chris, had recently been married in Fiji and as usual, offered us over-the-top service with a smile. By the end of the night we felt like long lost friends! Speaking of friends, Maisy, in her typical friendly way, sparked up a conversation with a family at the next table. She was cracking jokes and entertaining them with tales of our travels! It was a young family with a baby and some little girls Maisy’s age and their grandparents. They chatted for most of the meal and nicknamed Maisy “Little Miss International”, telling us she should be on tv! They actually live next door to Camp Homelani and Maisy was busy organising a play date with her new best friends Natalia and Leilani! Tomorrow is our last day here at the camp though so I’m not sure if her plans will come to fruition.
Ross heard it today from a great authority – the guy in the surf shop – that the swell is coming….He assured Ross that the surf will be 10 foot by Sunday and in his own laid back words he said it would be “tow-dall-ee solid man!” We’ll have to wait and see I guess. Right now, we’re all trying to stay awake so that we can listen to the live stream of the Manly vs Storm final on the internet. Sam has even donned his Manly gear for the occasion!
