The Blue house

Today I set off on the road to Hana, Richard had warned me it would take ages so I was up and about nice and early on my way at 7 to catch it before all the tour buses got there,
 5 miles in, so far so good, then I managed to clip a stone at the edge of the road and got a puncture
 .
More grumpy about the heat than changing the wheel, I set to, the jack was a bit puny but I managed to get the spacesaver wheel on and turned round off to the airport to explain why I needed a new car, Alamo were less than amused and wanted to know my insurance details from home and told me there would be an inquiry, hmm, perhaps it would have been cheaper and quicker to limp to a tyre centre and get it changed myself.

Just as it was getting pretty too!

The tour buses were all headed up the road as I was coming back so I left the road to Hana for tomorrow and headed up a different part of the coast 

Not actually short of views in that direction either...

Still early so I thought I would give the volcano another try ............. You have to admit, its not looking hopeful is it??

So I drove back up the twisty roads up the volcano, the information at the top says it is one of the largest changes in altitude over the distance in the world.. have to take that with a pinch of salt, what about the alps and the like, I bet they have some pretty rapid changes of altitude too.

Anyway going up it was soon clear that today wasnt going to be any better  and I am just not driving it again tomorrow on the offchance!

THIS time, on the way down I remembered to take a photo of the pretty blue house I saw yesterday, there wasnt any other cars following me so I just stopped in the road to take it- there was a 25 mph speed limit anyway, thats nearly stopped isnt it?

By now my mosquito bites were driving me crazy and I set off back to the B&B so I could stand in the waves and cool them down.

I have been a mosquito magnet for as long as I can remember, as a child I was the only person to get bitten in Chalkney woods, volunteering up there with the school, I got bitten about half a dozen times and my arm swelled up and went hard so I couldnt bend it,

Over the years I have tried everything to stop them getting me and stop the reaction and itching when they do pretty much nothing works although I did discover that taking an anti histamine for a week before going and a paste made of crushed orange flavour asprin helped a little. My ankles and legs are scarred from years of bites that have swollen up , they just love me so much that I have nearly 40 bites below the knee from the last few days. In Alaska they were bigger and you could see then coming and bat them off, but here they are small and harder to spot- they just sneak in and get me when I am not expecting it!

Sitting on the beach in the last of the sun, it was drizzling lightly and there was a pretty amazing sight across the bay

The water was a lot rougher than yesterday, as a rough guide, if there are surfers out then its pobably too rough to swim, so I sat and watched the sunset and scenery, it would have been nice to have Dunc here right now , romantic sunsets are all very well but better shared.

Oh and the coffee machine- it has a "brew now" button- problem solved!