Arrival on the Big Island

Next was the Island of Hawaii, which everyone calls "the big island" to avoid confusion. On arrival we grabbed our rental car, again we ordered a super compact..... but as none were available we were given a convertible!
With our new found luxury we headed for downtown Hilo. Hilo is an awesome place. The big island has two main centres Kona (of ironman fame) on the dry side is where all the resorts and Hilo which is on the we side. Hilo is awesome, its a quaint little town which according to a few old timers we met is exactly like what Honolulu was like in the 1950's. Hardly any tourists, plenty of rain and really friendly locals. So this was to be our base, bloody awesome hostel too, a converted brothel and had a cool 50's feel to it.
We checked in and headed straight for Mauna Kea, the leading observatory in the world. so we went from sea level to about 4 kms up, almost the height of Mt Cook. Sadly we visited on the 1% of nights that are cloudy so we couldn't see much at the 'star party' but we went to a lecture on near earth objects and meteors which was really really good.