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A first-ever trip to Hawaii. My expectations are high, but the islands exceeded my wildest dreams. The islands are stunning, spectacular, magical, incredible. Maureen and I will return soon.

Hawaiian Islands, part 1

Domz
2004-04-06 18:41:40

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trip.

On our first night, we drive to the mile-long Ali'ie Drive on the west coast near Kona. Like downtown Wakiki, we find this street to be bustling with festive pedestrians, and reminded me a great deal of the Mardi Gras atmosphere and architecture found on Duval Street in downtown Key West.

Overall, we drive about 180 miles on our first day on Big Island.

To begin day 2, we visit Rainbow Falls-a dramatic, powerful twin falls worth a stop for a look (photo on left). Just down the road is "Boiling Pots," which we find is not worth our time. It may have been that we observed it during low-flow conditions, but we did not see any sort of seething, boiling water. Looked like an exciting place to run a kayak through, though...

After this, we visit Kulala Falls, which is fair, then the 420-foot Akaka Falls, which was stupendous.

We then drive into the windward town of Hilo, which receives almost continuous rains, making for a very lush, flowery, luxurious community. The town features an impressive, seemingly continuous downtown farmers market, where we purchase some very odd Hawaiian fruit, such as the "chocolate icing" fruit, and a reddish-purple fruit that we end up calling the "hairy balls" fruit.

After Hilo, we stopped at Laupahoehoe Point, which had been crushed by a tsunami on April Fool's Day in 1946, forcing the village to move up to a higher elevation. Today, it is a very attractive park with a very rocky, rough shoreline with a strong, violent surf. We are surprised to see scuba divers near the rocks, since it seemed as if the strong surge would quickly crush them against the rocks.

Tropical Paradise gives us a helicopter ride over much of the Big Island when we stop again in Hilo for lunch. During the ride, we fly over the enormous lava fields in Volcanoes National Park that has an immensity that can only be appreciated ...