The North West of the Island

Leaving Hilo and traveling North along the coast road, took us along a very picturesque stretch with views of the sea to our right all the way. We had a few heavily forested gulches to go down and up the other side and we past small pioneer towns with the wooden shops like in the wild west.

The north of the Island is cowboy (paniolos) country. Men wear jeans and boots here rather than the coloured shirts and flip flops in other parts of the island.

They also have unique stop signs.

Della loves this place!

There were loads of horse and cattle ranches in this area, and some gorgeous properties. Rich ranch owners live here.

After tearing Della away, we carried on to the northernmost point, driving around the top of a- you guest it- volcano, called Kohala mountain road. This gave us great views of the coast to the West of the island.

This side of the island is much drier and flatter than the East side. We carried on to the northern most town of Hawi, another little pioneer town. We were supposed to be able to see the the neighbouring island of Maui from here, but the rain had come in from the sea, obscuring our view.

The road continues to the East in one direction to a dead end which is Pololu beach. It is a steep climb down, of about 400ft, and not without its hazards!

The rain was coming and going, so it made the path very slippery, so once we had gone about half way, we came back up before any of the afore mentioned disasters happened.

The view was worth the effort though.

The nearly vertical cliffs are battered by the north shore surf. This is one of seven valleys and are the only part of the island that show much sign of erosion.

Once we got our breath back we headed back to Hawi and then on in a Westerly direction which took us along the bottom road of the mountain we had travelled up on. The terrain here is flat and hot, even cactus grow here.

This is the driest part of the state average annual rainfall 10 inches, whereas Hilo gets 240 inches.

We stopped at Mauna Kea beach, which has a golf course and resort edging onto it. Tracy liked this place!

The beach is golden, fine sand here and there is good snorkeling at one side of the beach with a linear reef. The other side of the beach has a large amount of manta ray for divers to look at.

We stopped here for a short while before our trip home, and had time to put our toes in the Pacific, our first dip of 2010. We are hoping to have enough time during our stay to make the 2hr drive back to this part of the island and spend a little longer soaking up some rays before we have to put our woollies back on!

As we headed back from West to East, it started to rain. A rainbow followed us all the way home. We have never seen a complete rainbow before. For part of the journey the end of the rainbow was right by the side of our car, keeping up with us.

We have found our pot of gold ten fold today!