Well, today is our last full day on the islands. Tomorrow at 12:30, our
flight takes off for San Francisco. So, we will wrap up our sightseeing
on the big island today. One of the remaining things we want to see is
the Royal Kona Coffee factory and tour. We have to ask the hotel staff
where to go to do that, but I know it is nearby, since we are in the
general Kona area of the island.

Well, time to get stuffed at breakfast!

Well, we got off to an early start today, and were out of the hotel
about 8:30am and headed south for the Volcano Park. It is a long ride
around the west and south side of the island to the park, but there were
some fantastic views and interesting terrain to see.

Other than soda and bathroom stops, we only made one stop on the way to
the Volcano Park, and that was at the Black Sands Beach. We were not
really impressed, either. I thought it looked like someone just dumped
a few truckloads of finely crushed grey granite on the beach. I guess I
was expecting to see a much larger area of fine dark black fine sand,
and that just was not the case…

After that we moved on to Volcano Park, and I was somewhat disappointed
there as well. We arrived about noon and found out that any of the
currently active lava flows were at least a four hour round trip walk.
Nothing was accessible by car, even down at the end of the Chain of
Craters road by the seashore. Given my current muscle conditions, it
was out of the question to even try.

We did make the hike to the Thurston Lava Tube, and that was about all
my legs could take for the day. It is about a half mile walk, and has a
100 foot climb after leaving the tube, just about killed my legs for the
rest of the day.

Fortunately, we stopped at all the other points on the crater rim drive
first, so we saw everything along the main circle, at least. We decided
to not take the drive down to the ocean, since we would not see any
active lava sites, so we headed out for Hilo.

We stopped at the Mauna Loa Macadamia Nut Factory Store after a quick
bite for lunch about 3pm. We picked up some snacks at the store and
headed for the waterfalls around Hilo. We saw Rainbow Falls, Peepee
Falls and Boiling Pots and then headed north for the hotel.

Shortly after leaving Hilo, we saw a sign on the road for the “Scenic
Route”, so we took it. It is a 4 mile long, narrow, curvy and hilly
road along the coastline through tropical rain forests and across some
of the nicest small streams with cascading rapids and small waterfalls.
Marianne took many pictures to be posted at a later date when we have
high speed access again…

After the scenic tour, we got back on the Hawai’i Loop Highway and
headed back to the hotel. We got back about 2 hours later, around 7:30
and stopped at the King’s Shops for a quick dinner at Subway, as we both
are rather tired, and did not feel like a big dinner….

Last night I worked on some of the previous day’s pictures, but don’t
think I will get them posted until we return home because we don’t have
high speed access until that time….

After leaving the waterfalls and returning down to Hilo, we got a view of the harbor, and there was another cruise ship in the harbor again this visit to Hilo!

This time it was the "Pride of Hawai’i", not the "Pride of America", sorry Steve….

After leaving Hilo northward on the Hawaii Belt Road, we came across a sign for a scenic drive. It was listed as 4 miles long, and was a very interesting, narrow, hilly and curvy road along the coast. It ran through a tropical rain forest and over several streams headed to the ocean. I think it is listed as Old Mamalahoa Highway on the map we have. Here are a couple pictures of our drive:

A babbling brook in the Tropical Rain Forest.

A look down a sheer cliff to the coast.

Another look out to the ocean.

This stream flows through a cavern in the rocks, possibly an old lava tube? You can see the other end of the tube with the light shining on the stream on the other end.

To the NNW of Hilo, is the Wailuku River. As you travel up the river, you come across two nice waterfalls fairly close to the road and easily accessible, even for me

This is the first one, Rainbow Falls. The interesting thing about this falls is the cavern beneath the falls. It appears to go back under the falls quite some distance. I wonder if it is an old lava tube or something??

This falls is not as visible from the viewpoint, but it is a nice falls. It is called Peepee falls and the river below it has a nice round of rapids and boiling pots which are shown below.

After leaving the Volcanoes Park and a quick stop at McDonalds for Lunch, we stopped at Mauna Loa Macadamia Nuts for a quick tour. Of course, the tour was self-guided and up on a second story platform down the outside of the building, and I was just not up to climbing the stairs.

This is part of the macadamia Nut Tree Grove, I think there were 250,000 trees on 2500 acres, if I remember properly.

At least we got our picture taken by the inflatable logo , then we picked up some nuts and candy in the gift shop, along with a terrific ice cream cone and some free samples.