July 9 Hilo area

Today was a day to check out our neighbourhood. We drove into Hilo (20 min.) and went on to 3 waterfalls that are all in the same area (pretty much). The first one was called Boiling Pots then Rainbow and finally the highest at 400 feet, Akaka. The last fall was pretty cool. The pathway into it was totally a rainforest with huge ferns and trees and flowers OH AND SMELLS…good smells.
We had lunch at a local place on the water front and then spend the rest of the early afternoon finding things in the downtown Hilo area. A nice walk in Liliuokalani Gardens (Japanese gardens to honour the many Japanese to have lived and worked in Hawaii – see picture). Banyan Drive (these trees are huge and a whole street has several on each side). On the way back to our rental home (well we passed home) we drove down the coast a bit to two special places. The first was Ahalanui Park which has ½ acre pond heated by volcanic stream and cooled off with sea water, which breaks over the wall (see picture). The second was Kapoho Tide Pools. These pools are like little rock pools that you can snorkel in. It was getting late so we didn’t snorkel but we did look around. The drive back was just as good as the coast was so beautiful.
Later in the evening (after dark) we set out down the 130 highway again to the end where the lava had closed the road and lava hits the ocean. There are pictures of the large steam clouds as it hits the water on yesterday’s blog but at night it is even more amazing! However, it is also dark so the pictures don’t look that good. We do have video but won’t be able to post it until we are back in Canada. It was like watching a large fire with sparks flying everywhere and the steam cloud was all lit with oranges, yellows and red.
Enjoy.