Yesterday was a very, very full day exploring the north end of the island.
Our first stop was Lapakahi State Historical Park.
The Park is an old fishing village on the western shores of the island with beautiful views over the ocean. It is a quaint little spot right off the highway.
This, however, was our main target for the morning:
This is Pololu Valley at the top western edge of the island at the end of Highway 270. The road ends at the lookout, with the view above.
These scary looking signs greet you at the top of the trail down
WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! WARNING!
The trail down looked a bit scary too.
The trail down was a series of switchbacks, some on the edge of cliffs.
The views at the bottom were a reward in themselves.
The ocean and the valley were both beautiful. Something you don’t see everywhere though is the black sand beach
The surf was strong, discouraging swimming – Rebecca had to quickly step up at one point when the waves going out pulled out the sand out from underneath her feet! The trip down was definitely worth it and the hike was a bit of a challenge but still lots of fun.
Pololu Valley was only the first part of our journey though. From there, we drove down with beautiful views of cattle ranches into Kamuela or Waimea, where we had lunch, then continued across the north coast of the island toward Hilo, the other main city on the island.
We stopped at Akaka Falls State Park and took a short hike to see the falls.
Heading into Hilo, we stopped on the outskirts to see another recommended falls, Rainbow falls.
Rebecca’s hat is from Kona Brewing Company, where we ate lunch on Friday, which is a fantastic brewery on the island. The back says “Liquid Aloha”, which is their slogan.
Next stop was Kaumana Caves. We weren’t equipped to actually go in, since that required flashlights and long pants, but we did go down a set of very steep steps and look around a bit.
Hilo is called the City of Gardens. Two big tsunamis in the 1900s destroyed houses and buildings near the coast, so instead of rebuilding, the city has turned the coastal areas into gardens. We visited Lili’uokalani Gardens which was filled with lots of Asian inspired bridges, gazebos and statues. It was a nice quiet walk and seemed to be a popular wedding photo location.
Adjacent to the Garden is Coconut Island, which seemed to be a real hangout spot for locals. It was filled with birthday parties and BBQs, and people swimming, snorkeling and fishing around it’s edges.
Our route back to the resort took us along Saddle Road. Saddle Road is a bit infamous. It runs between the east and west coasts between Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa, the two large volcanoes on the island. Mauna Loa is the tallest mountain in the world when measured from the base, since most of it is under water. Mauna Kea is actually about 1000 feet taller, but it is a branch volcano from the side of Mauna Kea, so doesn’t count. Saddle Road was nicely paved at the Hilo end and there was evidence of ongoing road work to improve the pavement towards Kona. We took a detour up to the Mauna Kea Visitor Center
The clouds were quite low, so we drove through the clouds on our way up.
We weren’t able to drive up to the summit since our wimpy rental Cobalt doesn’t have the required 4WD. Both of us were missing our real car and it’s AWD.
On the drive back down we were rewarded again with beautiful views of the sunset through the clouds and mountains.
