Hawai'i-Day 3: The Drive

So much happened on Day 3 that I'm going to split the day up into three separate posts: The Drive, Hawai'i Tropical Botanical Garden, and Kilauea (the volcano).

We left our resort at 7 a.m. to make the long drive around the island. (You can click on the map to make it bigger.)

The first pictures here are taken in and around the town of Waimea. This part of the island is where most of the ranching takes place. Parker Ranch is also located in this town. We tried to see the ranch, but the signs weren't all that great, and we missed it.


We're on the road heading East from Waimea toward Honoka'a.

Beautiful, green pastures lined this stretch of road.

But they soon turned into wooded stretches of highway.

We turned off onto a little road to try to get a better view of the ocean. We didn't find any spectacular views here, but lots of neat plants and other vegetation.

We drove along the ocean for quite a few miles here as we made our way South East toward Hilo.

This side of the island is the rain forest. Beautiful vistas, but not many places to pull off of the road to enjoy!

There were huge gorges full of palm trees, coconut trees, ferns, and who knows what! They were amazing to see.
We were even able to catch some views of waterfalls while driving!

There were a few, not many, spots of cleared land for agronomic crops. We never saw any signs as to what was being grown at these farms.

Ooo, another waterfall!


We think this was a banana farm.


We had now turned off of the main road and were heading up to Akaka Falls.

More pasture land and beauty as far as you could see!


This field used to be where sugar cane was farmed. Cattle are now grazing on it.

We've arrived at Akaka Falls and we're making the hike down to see the waterfall itself.

We crossed streams.

And tons of bamboo.

There were also so many ferns! Fern trees, even! This reminded me a little of Fern Gully!

This waterfall was only one of the two or three waterfalls that are in this park. As luck would have it, the other part was blocked off for maintenance and it started raining.

The rain didn't last long, though, and by the time we had make the three mile drive back down to Hakalu (the little town on the main road), the rain had stopped. Travis thought this was the neatest looking tree. I'm not sure of the name, but it has one main trunk in the middle and then the branches send out these massive roots down to the ground to help hold the tree up. So, it really looks like this one massive tree is made up of hundreds of small trees. Pretty neat!

We took a scenic route out of Pepe'ekeo. Little did we know that it was the road that we needed to get to the Botanical Gardens!

The road was full of so many neat plants. (We can't help ourselves...we're plant nerds, I guess!)

We then arrived at the Hawai'i Tropical Botanical Garden. As mentioned above, this place deserves a post all to itself!

Here's a little peek at the gorgeous orchids!

After we spent a couple of hours at the Botanical Gardens, we kept driving toward Hilo. We found a little place to eat in town that reminded us of Freebirds once we got inside, so we had burritos!

Once we finished lunch, we headed toward Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park. We made one quick stop at Akatsuka Orchid Gardens, but didn't take any pictures there.

A preview of the massive volcano! Kilauea also deserves its own post!

Once we got out of Volcanoes National Park, we headed South West toward Na'alehu.
The landscape was changing again. We were heading further away from the rain, so it was much drier on this part of the island.




We drove along the coastline for a short while before making a turn toward the West.


This picture was the last taken on this day. We were losing daylight and had decided to stop and eat. We didn't get a picture of it, but we ate at the Southernmost Bar in the United States! It was a little dive, but it was an experience!

We drove the remaining hours in the pitch dark. We were able to see some of what we missed in the dark on Day 4 when we spent the first half of the day looking for coffee farms. But more on that later! After 14 hours on the road, we were glad to be back at the resort. It had been a really long, but interesting, day!

Hawai'i-Days 1 & 2

Hawai'i has been amazing. There are 13 climates in the world, and this island has 11 of them. And, even though this is the largest of the islands, it is still not a huge area, so the landscape changes very quickly. You may be driving along very lava-rocky, dry conditions and then within just a few miles, the landscape changes to green pastures. Our resort is on the dry side of the island where the rainfall is around 10" per year. As you drive North, the rainfall increases, and by the time you get to the east side of the island, you are in a rain forest where they receive 132" of rain per year. It is just amazing.

I've done the best I can with a map and paint, so hopefully you can follow what routes we've taken!

Day 1 was the 18 mile drive from the airport to the resort. Travis and I had a very different idea of what we thought Hawi'i would look like. All of the brochures make all of the islands seem like they are lush and green all over. This just isn't true at all! The North West side of the island has little vegetation and is predominately exposed lava rock.

You can see white rocks placed on the black lava rock. I guess you could call this "graffiti". The white rocks are actually white coral that was brought up to make signs or write names on the side of the road. The coral can be found washed up in the lava rocks near the shore. These rocks were most likely brought up by people to the road and are not just naturally out there.


This is the view from our resort. Everything is nice and open. And gorgeous!

Here are a couple of pictures of our room.


And the view from our balcony!


We're in the little shopping center that is close to our hotel. You could do all the shopping you can stand within walking distance of the hotel!

This is the beginning of Day 2. On this day, we drove up the North West coast of the island, making frequent stops along the way to sight see! At one of our stops, we were able to see whales from the shore!

This is the stop that we were able to whale watch for a few minutes.


We drove up to Hawi and then on to the Pololu Valley Lookout. It was amazing. You can hike from the top all the way down to the bottom of the valley, but unfortunately, it started raining on us, so we didn't make the hike.



On the way back down to Hawi from the Lookout, we stopped at this little creek to take a few pictures and check out nature!


From Hawi, we took Hwy 250 down to Waimea. The landscape was completely different and we were more in the "cattle country" of the island. This is also the area that is home of the Parker Ranch. Parker Ranch is the largest privately-owned ranch in the United States!!


Breathtaking views around every corner! I drive the entire trip, which was just fine with me. Travis enjoyed sitting back, taking pictures, and taking in the scenery!

We did all of Day 2 driving in the morning and early afternoon. We were back at the hotel by 1:00 p.m. Travis had his presentation late this afternoon, so we didn't do much exploring for the rest of the day. Besides, we needed our rest, because on Day 3, we had 14 full hours of sight seeing!