Walkabout with Marjan: Some of Hawai'i island's biosphere diversity

So I got an early start today. Headed down and did some washing and got Marjan some breakfast treats. Even after doing the washing we still managed to get out before 9. We headed north and found a wonderful place to have our wake up swim. Like a few of the places along this coast there are big, forbidding gates. However we knew there was public beach access and they raised the gates for us. So we drove through the Manua Kea golf course and headed down to the beach. We had a nice swim and Marjan managed to get dumped by a wave on the way in. She was not happy.

We kept driving north through some amazingly contrasting scenery. Yellowish grass set off against a blue blue sea with the volcano on Maui in the distance. It was beautiful, but you will have to trust me. When Marjan drives she stops for no man. Anyway, I finally managed to get her to break when I offered her a break for a danish we had not consumed at breakfast. We found a nice spot to have morning tea.

As we drove north the countryside got greener. Obviously more rain up here. We were heading for Pololu Valley. As we got closer we were driving through jungle greenery. This little part of the big island is a little like the Na Pali Coast on Kaua'i where the mountains rise out of the sea. It looked good from above so down we went.

To a lovely black sand beach...

Backed by a gorgeous valley.

The walk was not overly strenuous, but the conditions were awful. High humidity and very little breeze meant that the walk back up produced buckets of sweat. One bloke who saw me on the way up asked if I was walking or swimming up the hill.

We had spotted a likely lunch place on the way up. Hawi had looked like a really pretty little town. It was. We had some a burger each supplemented by smoothies (amazingly good) and as much iced water as we could get. We really needed to hydrate again. We then had a little wander around the artisan shops in the town. I loved some of the wooden bowls and plates being produced but they were too awkward to.......pay for. I would have paid for some beautiful necklaces for Marjan but she declined and shooed me out of the shop.

Eventually we had drunk as much as we could manage and moved on. From Hawi we drove up onto the Kohala Mountains. The road, as seems to be the way here, went straight up, and our little car struggled until we evened out. By then we were in rolling green hills. Cattle country. In looks not too dissimilar to South Gippsland....well apart from the temperature and the occasional volcanic mound. Some amazing views across the intervening lava field to Mount Hualalai. ( the forgotten mountain at only 8k feet). That dark patch in the middle of the lava plain is a town, Waikoloa. The dark is the trees.

We kept going and ended up at Waipi'o, which is the other end of the cliffs from Pololu, but a long drive around. We were not up for the walk down and the shuttle had just taken off, so we settled for the view. You can just make out the waterfall dropping to the beach.