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Published: September 5th 2023
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What a varied and lovely day – a dry day.
After a speedy breakfast we headed out before 7:30 to cross the “Saddle Road” from West to East again – this time all the way to Hilo. Our first stop, however, was the lovely Kaulana Manu trail where we’d enjoyed a walk yesterday. Getting there early rewarded us with a lovely red I’iwi – he loves the Ohi’o tree’s red puffy flowers too. And the Japanese Whiteeye.
Then off to the Rainbow Falls in a park just outside the city of Hilo. Yes, we saw the rainbow colors in the mist. It was a very small park so we only stayed 15 mins – there was an enormous banyan tree there too. Then we drove 5 mins to the Boiling Pots section of the park – another short visit.
We had an interesting time driving down the normal residential streets. For those of you interested in housing – I haven’t seen anything made of anything but wood – and much of the house is raised up – for air? For flooding? Some of the first few feet of some of the structures might be cinder blocks. Mostly just
wooden lattice work. Many tin roofs, and mostly one story unless the house wants to rise up for the view. Lots of wrap-around porches to catch the breezes – at least that’s what “normal” looked like in Hilo and also in our neighborhood – except here you add the enormous slope, so many houses sit on ground for half of their size, and cantilever over the ground – and that’s where the storage might be. Most houses do have garages or just carports.
Interesting – so far we’ve met 2 people who are visiting HI because they are “house sitting.” How do we get such a job? And why do they need their houses sat?
Back to the nature side of our explorings. After this park we drove north to the Botanical Garden, hoping to enter for free because we are members in Ohio. Nope, and it was $30 each. That’s where we photographed the cute little “Gold dust day gecko” on the red flower.
We decided we were seeing enough lovely things for free, or much less. So off about 20 more minutes to the Akaka Falls State Park, for a snippet - $5 each plus
$10 for the parking. Lots and lots of steps, but a long falls – couldn’t find a place to stand to see the bottom even. That park also had an enormous banyan – the photo we took. David loved the irony of my photo with the 2 feral cats – danger!
The town nearby was very old-fashioned, and had a Buddhist temple, a mission church, a Mormon church, and an orthodox one! This used to be very busy with sugar cane growing – now not so much of anything.
We stopped at the site of a very sad disaster, when the tsunami of 1946 wiped out a neighborhood and school. Now a park, it was busy with locals doing their typical Labor Day barbecuing, INTERESTING thing – the wind was blowing a piece of paper around so we nabbed it. Turned out to be someone’s paycheck for over $2000. Guess we will call the company tomorrow and ask what should be done about it.
We kept going north, counterclockwise, to the very top of the island, to see the lovely Waipio Canyon. Fortunately David remembered that he’d downloaded an app for driving around here, and so we
learned a lot as we went. The road down the canyon is so steep you aren’t allowed to drive down unless you are a resident. It used to be a populated area until the tsunami. Now only about 30 people live a traditional fishing and taro-growing lifestyle. The beach has black sand. We finally saw a Hawaiian hawk – there’s only one type so we knew what it was. Too poor a photo to post but NEW BIRD!
On the way home we stopped by the Golf Course again – just to drive slowly around the entrance roads. The goats were out in full force – but we noticed there must have been a “cart path only” ruling recently.
Stopped for ground beef etc and made a simple spaghetti Bolognese for dinner. Another tiring but full day! I’m ready for my deep hot bath and bed!
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