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Day 4 - Jan 26th 2005 - Road Trip to Hilo

After the usual breakfast of papaya with lime, some toast, and some "passo-guava nectar" (YUMMY STUFF!), we headed out on a road trip to Hilo.

Video of various parts of the roadtrip (6.5 Mb)

The vista from Waipio valley. You need a 4x4 to get down the 25% grade here. We didn't go down in our little POS rental.

An old garage in one of the local villages around Laupaho'eho'e.

        
Laupaho'eho'e. The water here is always crashing and the wind is always blowing.

A tsunami wiped out Laupaho'eho'e a number of years ago. Tragically, a school full of children and a number of houses were destroyed by the waves. A memorial stands there today.
It's an eery reminder of the recent disaster in the Indian ocean.

Neal walking along the narrow gauge railway track at the Laupahoehoe Railway museum. They used to use railways on the Big Island to transport sugar cane to the docks for shipping
....until the sugar cane industry collapsed.

The plantation warehouse....

And the plantation owners house.

A great big banyan tree beside the Hakalau plantation warehouse.

The view of Mauna Kea beside the banyan tree. There are observatories atop Mauna Kea.

Jungle....deep dark jungle. The "Hilo Side" of the island gets WAY more rain than the "Kona side" where it's all black lava fields....almost a desert on the Kona side.

The view towards the ocean (makai) from an old bridge down the gulch.

The view away from the ocean (mauka) up the gulch.

One of the few self-portaits of me. ;-)

At the top of this hill, is where that big banyan tree is.

Then we stopped for lunch at another gulch, called "Kolekole Park". There were these amazing flowering trees along the road down the hill.
      

The waves a Kolekole Park.

   
After lunch at Kolekole park, we proceeded up the old highway to Wailea, a VERY old village, where most of the people are japanese elders. We stopped in at a Buddhist bed & breakfast / art gallery. The nicest woman, Akiko, welcomed us into her place.

The bed & breakfast and accompanying art gallery / gathering place were converted from the village's old service station. Akiko, a dancer by training, was so full of aloha. She gave off this vibe of absolute peace & tranquility, and welcomed us so warmly to her place. We wanted to make a donation to the free art gallery, but instead she asked that weaccompany her up to see her "Temple to Our Ancestors". This is a japanese-style pagoda temple that one of her guests had built for her a few years ago. Truly, a place of peace and tranquility. One of her numerous cats, Kalah, accompanied us up to her temple. This is a place I would like to visit again, maybe not stay (although I bet it would 100% relaxation & peace).

Akiko mentioned to us that she had just returned from an early morning "greeting of the sun" at the Volcano. She and a few of her guests travelled to the volcano at 4:30am to see the sunrise from the volcano crater. Now that would be an amazing experience.

     
Every window in Akiko's place formed a framed "picture" of the flora outside. Absolutely beautiful, and in simple harmony with nature.

Then, we arrived in Hilo. We toured around downtown Hilo, going to the farmer's market, and then to the "Kress" building. This is a quite historic office building in downtown Hilo that had been converted into a school / educational centre. Along the walls, were historic pictures from Hilo's past. My dad wanted to record these, so I took pictures of pictures for him.

This was a neat pair of posters in the school. I like them.

Then we drove down to "Banyan Drive", on the Hilo Waterfront. It is named for an obvious reason...the HUMUNGOUS banyan trees lining the street.

Just to give you the scale of this tree, mouse over this picture....this thing was BLOODY HUGE. This photo is actually a 4-shot panorama, the tree was so huge.

After Hilo, we took the Saddle Road back to Waimea. This road was fine coming out of Hilo, but once you get up to the top, it becomes a VERY windy, VERY hilly, VERY bumpy, patch-on-patch-piece-of-crap road that runs through an army artillery range in the centre of the island. Really freaky road. While we were driving, the clouds & light in the sky captured my eye. I dunno if these photos do them justice, but the light and clouds were just.....curious.

Yes, there is snow in Hawai'i!

You can see all the old cones that were formed a long time ago by the volcano.

More cones in the mist....this was closer to Waimea, where it is very rainy / foggy.

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