Moving from the dry to the wet on the island of Hawaii

As promised, we drove through several distinct microclimates today as we moved from South Kona on the Big Island’s southwest side to the North and then northwest area, driving north on 190 to Waimea and especially during our drive north from there on 250 to Hawi. At one point, we seemed to be driving on the border between two very different lands. To our right was Ireland with a touch of Arizona – dazzlingly bright emerald green high rolling hills with the occasional grazing cow and prickly cactus. To our left was Wyoming with a touch of the moon – an arid flat valley stretching out to the ocean filled with sand-colored scrub and black volcanic rock. Wow!

We also moved from sun and heat to rain and fog and then, just in the knick of time, sun – as we set off on a hike down into the dramatic Polola’a Valley – a series of high cliffs jutting into the ocean and just beyond, former bits of the island now marooned as enormous jagged boulders in the ocean. The hike was a little terrifying – okay a lot terrifying – because it’s muddy at the best of times and REALLY muddy right after it’s rained – and it was all down hill winding down a cliff covered with tropical vegetation. I did my little old lady steps and leaned so heavily on a wooden walking stick that by the end I had a few splinters in my palm.  I only fell once and fortunately it was in slow mo into a muddy earthern surface rather than the other option – a muddy rock. By the time we got down to the pristine black sand beach at the bottom I was drenched with sweat – more from anxiety than the heat. But the views were worth the saturated shirt, muddy shorts, legs and sandals.

We marked our triumph with – what else – an ice cream cone in the funky western town of Hawi – at the local Tropical Dreams ice cream shop which produces a dazzling Tahitian Vanilla, among other flavors. We drove a bit south and then east to Honoka’a – on the north of the Hamakua Coast. And now I’m in a lovely room in an old plantation style house in the countryside – the Waipo’o Wayside B&B.  More refined than our last b&b and we’ve traded in the sound of roosters for the strange chirping of tree frogs.