Day 9 – Eastbound and Down…Hello Hilo!
Up early again, we ate just enough of the Costco provisions to settle our stomachs because, just like the day before, our initial long drive would culminate at a destination of malasada goodness! Heading north up the western coast of the island, we took the 19 all the way up to near Waikui, where he then turned due east, passing through Waimea en route to Honoka’a and ultimately Tex Drive-In. Now, I had read that these were hands-down the greatest malasadas on the Big Island. Well, we’d be the judge of that! Here were the contestants:
Definitely the largest of all the malasadas we enjoyed during our trip, they were freshly made (you could watch the person making them through a series a large windows), optionally available with a selection of creams injected inside, and rectangular. Of the six we purchased, five were unfilled and my wife ordered one with Bavarian Crème. The verdict? It was a split decision. I absolutely LOVED them; my wife…not so much, but then I doubt she would have liked any other malasada after her lilikoi glazed from Punalu’u Bakery the day before. Our daughter? It’s a doughnut and she’s a kid, of course she devoured them. Overall, I don’t know if I can call them the best on the island, but then I don’t know that there is a best on the island or in all the islands for that matter. We enjoyed three different types of malasadas on this trip, Leonard’s on Oahu, Punalu’u Bakery, and now Tex Drive-In. I thought that they were all amazing in their own special ways, and comparing them to one another is like comparing a Dole Whip to a Churro. My recommendation…try them all!
OK, now for the scenery! A mere 15 minute drive northwest of Tex, we gazed up this:
I give you the Waipio Valley Lookout. Parking was very limited in the small lot, but we got lucky and claimed one while we watched many others forced to park along the road behind us. Not just a lookout to the beauty below, it also serves as a trailhead for those who want to trek down (and back up) to the valley. Nope, not our thing, so we were very happy looking out from up above.
The lookout also serves as the northernmost point of the Hamakua Heritage Corridor, a scenic drive south towards Hilo along sea cliffs, through lush valleys, tropical rainforests, and towering woodlands, and offering detours out to nearby waterfalls, grassy pastures, and old plantation towns. Our next destination was Laupahoehoe Point Beach Park, a little under 40 minutes south. Wow, what an interesting drive this was! All was tame until we made the left off of the “highway” (they can call them highways, but they really aren’t) and onto Laupahoehoe Point Road. We suddenly found ourselves making our way down through a very curvaceous two lane road, which on multiple occasions led to a single lane bridge, where courtesy (and following the posted signs for right of way) was the call of duty. Speed was certainly not the goal on this road, nor the right thing to do.
Finally, we arrived and parked in a grassy space, in front of a memorial and across from a large open grass area. We could hear the thundering sounds of the waves immediately. The sea was angry this day my friends, but that didn’t deter a few men from standing out between some rocky outcroppings, wearing thigh high waders, and casting their lines. The contrasting colors were stunning; we had the pitch black volcanic rocks, merging with the crystal blue water and raging white surf, coupled with the multiple shades of green from the surrounding trees. So amazingly beautiful:
Granted, we didn’t walk the full length of the property, but we never actually saw what we would consider to be a beach. Perhaps it was off to the north from where we explored, but if so we were still very happily satisfied.
Returning to our car, we made a quick stop at the memorial to pay our respects. On April 1, 1946, a tsunami killed 19 schoolchildren and 5 adults here. All of their names and ages are engraved upon a rock. The village that once resided here was relocated further inland to avoid another tragedy. After a solemn moment and a hug of our daughter, we drove off, once again meeting the challenge of the windy road above.
A thirty minute drive south and a bit inland brought us to Akaka Falls State Park. Yet again, we found a ton of folks parking their cars along the road, outside of the parking lot. As we pulled in, we noticed that the lot was quite full, but luck was on our side yet again as we arrived just as another car was pulling out. The moral of the story, my friends, is always check the parking lot first!
It was raining. No duh! We were on the wet side of the island after all. Truth is, my wife and daughter were actually happy to see the rain because we could finally pull out all of the rain gear we lugged with us on this trip. It was not a wasted effort after all! Rain jackets on (yeah, that was the extent of our “gear”), we stopped at the top of the pathway and paid our $5.00 “cover charge” to an employee sitting under an umbrella at a fold out table. It is weird how they do this here. It is $5.00 per car or $1.00 per pedestrian if they walk up. Perhaps this is why so many cars parked outside of the parking lot; they were willing to walk further just to pay a few bucks less. Whatever works best for you I suppose.
Visitors to Akaka Falls have two choices, left or right. Right, which is what we chose, takes you first to view Kahuna Falls and then you make your way to the big show, Akaka Falls. While not overly difficult, be warned that this fully paved and hand-railed circular path is by no means flat. You walk down several steps and guess what…you walk up a bunch too. If I am honest, Kahuna Falls are nice to look at, so worth the effort, but Akaka Falls is spectacular!
Again, we visited while it was raining, not pouring by any means, but a good solid drizzle. It was a bit grey and cloudy, but it didn’t take away from the majesty of the falls before us. It may be even more beautiful with crystal blue skies atop it, but we were still mightily impressed.
After a quick bathroom stop next to the parking lot, we started to drive away just as the weather started to clear. Whatcha gonna do, right? It was lunch time or should I say smoothie time! A mere 15 minutes away sat What’s Shakin, home of some of the island’s best all fruit smoothies! Hidden in front of a serene, green pasture, we parked just as a tour bus arrived. Happily beating the mass of people that exited, we lined up in the fairly short queue (again…good timing) and placed our orders. For the life of me, I cannot recall what we had specifically, nor did I take any pictures of them (I know…WHAT?!), but I can tell you that they were delicious and refreshing. We enjoyed them sitting at one of the many undercover picnic tables adjoining the building. While there, we laughed as we watched a small herd of goats prancing away at the rear of the pasture behind us. Add the very pleasant breeze we enjoyed and you really couldn’t have asked for much more.
Nourished and re-energized, we continued our southern trek and stopped at the Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden. This place is a true labor of love. The Garden was created through the untiring efforts of one man, Dan J. Lutkenhouse, who came upon Onomea Valley in 1977 while vacationing with his wife, Pauline. Mr. Lutkenhouse purchased the 17-acre parcel for its seclusion and beauty, without knowing exactly what to do with it. Quickly abandoning ideas for a commercial venture which would destroy the natural environment, he decided instead to establish a botanical garden to preserve the valley and its beauty forever. I won’t go any more into the history of this place, but what this man made and how he made it is truly amazing.
Buying tickets, we made our way into the garden. Before I continue, I should mention that by this time of the day, in this area of the island, it was blue sky and really, really hot! Couple the heat with the fact that the top section of the garden itself is pretty steep, though with paved steps and pathways, I was a tad concerned heading inside. We found walking down to be a pleasure, where walking back up was, ha, not fun. So “not fun” that they offered, for an extra fee, a cart ride up from the bottom of the garden. We heard many older visitors opt for this option and honestly I can’t say that I blamed them.
The sheer number of different plants and flowers in this garden is astounding. I will let some of our pictures simply speak for themselves:
The paths ultimately lead visitors down to the coastal waters, which again were mighty aggressive this day and certainly not suitable for swimming; standing back and gawking at, yes, but actually getting into, not safe.
Narrowly surviving the climb back up to the visitor center (yes, I am being overly dramatic, but we were huffing and puffing and dripping sweat), we entered the air-conditioned oasis that was the gift shop! It is not a big shop at all, folks, but we must have spent easily a half hour in there just cooling off…and yes, we did buy a few things, a pair of earrings for my wife, a wooden carving for our daughter, and a guitar pick with a tiki on it for me!
Having our full of nature for the day, we decided to head into Hilo to just look around a bit. I’ll be honest, I was kind of shocked with Hilo. We quickly found parking in a public lot up from the bay and then hoofed it around for several blocks. Maybe we just visited during an economic downturn for the city, but there were a lot of shuttered businesses where we walked. Of the shops that were open, we meandered through a few, mostly “new to you” type stores and a really cool shop selling local artist’s and artisan’s works. After about 30 minutes or so, we gave up and decided to head to our next planned destination, Big Island Candies.
Located in Hilo, Big Island Candies completely blew us away with its awesomeness! As soon as we walked inside this large building, we were immediately greeted by staff at the front desk, offering us samples of a couple different items; they were both mouthwatering! Off to the right were bathrooms and I think office space, to the left sat the widespread retail center, and in the back, behind a series of tall clear windows was the manufacturing area. Unfortunately, we must have arrived between shifts because while there was a handful of white apron-clad staff in the back area, they were collectively discussing something and not actually working any of the machinery.
As we perused the incredible assortment of candies, chocolates, treats, brownies (oh, those brownies!), and signature shortbreads (which were specifically what got this place on my wife’s radar), as well as the many assorted gift boxes, we frequently stopped to grab more and more free samples from upon the shelves. If a particular item didn’t have a sample readily available, all you had to do was ask one of the many roving staff members, who would simply run to the back and get you a piece to taste. Friends, we were in Heaven and I can honestly say that I was so mesmerized by this place that I forgot to snap a single picture; sorry about that.
The worst part of it, and I kid you not, was having to pick what we wanted and manage to show some level of self-control. Our first priority was to get some gifts for family and co-workers, which we did, including a couple special gift/keepsake boxes, the proceeds of which went to help those impacted by the recent volcanic eruptions. Next, we got to shop for ourselves, and while the intent of the free samples was to help you identify what you liked, ideally making your decisions easier, they made them ever so much harder. I know, life is tough, huh? Selections eventually finalized (after circling the shelves, I kid you not, easily a dozen times), I recommended to my wife that we buy one of their nice large zip-up insulated bags. We could not only use it now to transport the items, but it was the perfect size to be a carry-on for our flight home. As the cashier scanned in all of our selections, the total just kept creeping higher and higher. Grasping the bag last, she then paused before scanning its barcode and looked at our subtotal. Not saying a word, she grabbed a card from under the counter, as well as a hole-puncher, and proceeded to hole-punch the heck out of it! She then either scanned a barcode on that card or manually entered some sort of code into the register, saying, “The bag is free since you spent so much.” Joy!
Nearing the late afternoon at this point, we had one more stop to make before dinner…the Mauna Loa Macadamia Nut Factory! A short 15 minute drive south out of Hilo proper, we soon found ourselves making a left off Highway 11, onto none other than Macadamia Nut Road. Really, could it have been named anything else?! Traveling down this lengthy, fairly straight road, we soaked in views of what simply had to be acres upon acres of macadamia nut trees. At last, we reached the facility, quickly snapping a few pictures with the inflatables out front, and then entered the visitor center and gift shop. Yet again, we found ourselves in the same earlier dilemma…too much goodness to choose from! Free samples were offered at a service counter, but yeah, same thing, all of the assorted flavors of macadamia nuts, including Mango Chipotle, Honey Sriracha, Maui Onion and Garlic, and Kona Coffee Glaze (among others), were all so good! After several deep breaths, we made some practical decisions (darn it!) and exited with a nice stash.
Directly outside, across the parking lot, sat the manufacturing building. A large sign indicated where the self-guided tour began, with stairs leading up to an exterior walking platform; the ladies decided to have a little fun:
We popped up and, just like with Big Island Candies, we arrived between shifts. Similarly, we saw a few staff members within, but none of the machines were in operation. We could easily see the colorful packaging loaded into several of them, but they sat their motionless, awaiting to be filled with nutty goodness later that day.
Heading out, we made our way back into Hilo proper to our dining destination for this evening, the Hilo Bay Café. I am not going to go into great detail about the meal here. It was good, not great, but the service was excellent, and the view of the bay was exquisite. It should also be noted that this restaurant sits up above ground level on a series of stilts, so that it pretty cool, and it is located next to the famous Banyon Drive. Online comments about the restaurant were mostly positive (yeah, I know these are always subjective), plus they took reservations; with such a long drive still ahead of us, returning to the Kona side of the island, this fact was important to us.
Dinner wrapped up, our final “adventure” began…driving back to our condo. The route was pretty simple, hit Saddle Road and go west, merging onto the Daniel K. Inouye Highway and then the Mamalahoa Highway. As I touched on during our Day 8 section, it kind of amused me how they called certain roads “highways” that were nothing more than two-lane roads through mountains, flatlands, and residential areas. I suppose depending on the elevation, some this roads could be called “high” ways, but come on. Saddle Road and Mamalahoa Highway were only two lanes, but Inouye Highway was a glorious three lanes and we could legally drive 60 miles per hour! Yay!
The adventurous aspect of these roads were twofold. First and foremost, in sections of the two-lane stretches, you could pass one another if you had the gumption and the horsepower to do so. Secondly, it was really dark out there, really dark. No light poles that I could remember and nothing but Mother Nature on either side. Seriously, if your headlights were out, then you were in trouble at night out here; and if I am not mistaken, our Wi-Fi petered out off and on while out here too.
Leaving Hilo, we were racing the sunset in the western sky and as expected we lost. There were long portions of the drive where we were seemingly alone on the road. It was a tad creepy; totally the setup for a scary movie. In a few instances, we would see a pair of headlights appear from the black behind us. Trying our best to mind the posted speed limits (our rental car actually had an audible alert that went off when we hit 60mph…so annoying!), lights that we saw would inevitably catch up to and pass us, disappearing back into the black ahead of us. Eventually we made it home, safe and sound, and very ready for a good night sleep. Tomorrow…we snorkel!!!