Day 7 – Busy with Nature
Trip Start
Dec 12, 2011
1
7
28
Trip End
Jan 10, 2012
Where I stayed
Hawi, Hawaii
Sunday, December 18, 2011
First, the botanical gardens located north of Hilo were visited. This is a place where over 2000 different plants can be seen. And there were absolutely weird and gorgeous plants. Maija’s favorite was colorful Orchid garden and mine was Dwarf Pineapple, a miniature pineapple plant. After one hour walk in the gardens we finished our tour and headed further north.
Second, the Akaka Falls were witnessed. It was an impressive waterfall that gathered also plenty of other tourists, especially the Japanese seemed to swarm around the waterfall lookout.
Then it was time for a lunch stop in 50s Diner where burgers were great value and the decoration of the restaurant was themed around the 50s. After the waitress heard that we come from Finland she asked us to set the pin in their world map to track their customers’ origin. We found couple of other pins placed inside the Finland’s borders but no pin set in Tampere, so we were probably the first people from our city to visit this legendary chow down, wow!
From this point on we were lucky to see the sun shining rest of the afternoon. This was great because the third nature spot for us was Waipio Valley that cannot be visited by foot if the weather is rainy. The hike down to the valley, to the beach, to see the Hiilawe Falls (highest waterfall in US), and back to the top was challenging task because of the long and very steep path to reach this beauty. In addition to the beach and waterfall we met some wild horses living in the valley and some local people cruising with their 4WDs in the valley roads.
On our way to the next accommodation in Hawi we visited Parker’s Ranch Store located in Waimea, Paniolo country. I felt fortunate to notice this cowboy store because of their good selection of interesting ranch wear.
The last 15 miles of our todays trip where scenic, probably the best road so far here.
Onni
