Pu’ukohola Heiau
Enid and I have been snorkeling almost daily. We’ve been at Waialea, and a couple of days at Waikoloa. The beach at Waikolo is very nice, and the snorkeling, if you go straight out from shore about two or three hundred yards is nice. However close in to shore it is very cloudy and almost impossible to see much.
Today, tired of snorkeling, we decided to do some sight-seeing, so we drove north to the end of the Big Island along the Kohala Coast. We stopped at Pu’ukohola Heiau National Historic Site which is where King Kamehameha I constructed a temple atop a hill. It was instrumental in his ascendency to become the king of all the Hawaiian islands by 1810.
Koai’e Cove, Maui in distance
Next we drove to the Lapakahi State Historical Park which is the ruins of what was once a large settlement, occupied from about 600 years ago to the beginning of the 1900’s. We found this rather more interesting than the National Park, since there were the outline ruins of many buildings which once were here. It is a beautiful bay, very calm, and in the distance you can see Maui across about 30 miles of ocean. I can well understand why people would have occupied this site for so long. Apparently it was probably abandoned when the well ran dry.
Next we drove in to Mahukona Beach Park. This is the site of an old harbor and concrete dock from the time when it was a sugar refinery. Now the refinery is closed, but you can snorkel here, and there were several people out in the bay. We decided it wasn`t the ideal site for lunch, though it would have been ok, so drove on to Kapa`a Beach Park. This was much nicer as there was a picnic table in the shade, so we ate lunch here, then afterwards went snorkeling for about half an hour. It was a somewhat difficult entry off the rocks, but the water was very clear and there were quite a few fish. There even was a shower with hot water to wash off. I wore my new diving cap today, which works well and will really keep the sun off my bald spot, which has gotten nicely burned.
Pololu Valley
After this we drove the rest of the way to the end of the road at Pololo Beach. We didn`t walk all the way to the ocean, as it is a steep trail, but we did go about half way down to where there is a good viewpoint. In the short distance from where we ate lunch at Kapa`a to Hiwa, which can`t be over ten miles, the country changes from arid desert to tropical rainforest as you move from the west to the east shore of the island.
On the way back we stopped to take pictures of the King Kamehameha I statue in Kapa`au and also in Hiwa where we had a really delicious macadamia nut ice cream cone at the `Tropical Dreams` ice cream shop. I had chocolate and Enid had vanilla — I have to admit I think hers was the better choice, though they were both very nice.