Tropical Gardens and the East Side

It was interesting being wide awake after only about 4 hours of sleep, but here we were, facing the day and the unknown torrent of emotions it would entail. The decision had been made the day before to drive over to the east side of the island to go visit the Hawaii Tropical Botanical Gardens in Papaikou, HI, a few short miles north of Hio. It certainly seemed like a fitting way to remember a marvelous woman who adored the natural world, especially its rainbows of flora.

After grabbing two amazing smoothies, we took the highway 19 which follows the northwestern coast and then moves inward towards Waimea. The portion that followed that coast was pretty remarkable as it was black with hardened lava flows but had an interested contrast of tall, yellow grass growing amid the rocks. Another striking detail was that folks has spelled out messages in the sable rock beds with small, white rocks. The messages followed general themes of people's names, when they were here, someone declaring love for someone else and messages of remembrance for loved ones that have passed.

Just before Waimea, which is a ranching town and apparently where cowboys still roam if you believe the billboards, the land began to take a turn for what I would consider one of my favourite sorts of scenic drives. The rocky slopes turned to lush rolling hills blanketed with a verdant grasses perfect for grazing. The sunshine seemed to make this type of grass glow a beautiful shade of light green that I can't even begin to describe to you and just doesn't show up in the photographs. The only other place I've seen it was on the North Island of New Zealand and if I could bottle it up and keep that colour for the darkest of the rainy Seattle days, I bet it would make a world of difference. I also have to note that this area reminded me so much of New Zealand that I was so lost in thought about reminiscing about that landscape that I was startled to see a Smokey Bear sign to prevent fires on the side of the road. (Why is that in New Zealand? Wait.. we're in the Hawaii. Hawaii is the US. Okay, I've got it now.)

When it was almost time to turn off of Hwy 19 to the Botanical Gardens, we decided to take a four mile scenic route to get there. (Yes, this was a well marked scenic route, so it was actually on purpose. No, we didn't actually get lost and are just calling it that.) This was a narrow road through some windy curves that took us some beautiful, overgrown "jungle" with thick banyan trees and other dense vegetation. Jungle is still probably the best way to describe it.

So, the Tropical Botanical Garden was built in 1977 (Good year, that '77) by a married couple. Man, the work they put into this place is pretty amazing. It's called a valley by the ocean for a reason because the whole park takes you through downhill paths, boardwalk or dirt, as it meanders through, in, under and around some of the most amazing flowers and tall, tropical trees and plants you can imagine. My favourite, by far, was the beehive plant, though the cannonball tree is a close second.

The path went by a tiered waterfall (yes, natural one as nothing else would do for a tropical setting) at one point, which was certainly photo worthy. However, the best part was having the path snake you back and forth in the shade through tall vegetation while you caught glimpses of the sunlight azure ocean and white waves crashing upon black rocks. Great way to build up some anticipation. Once you reached the ocean view, it's difficult to not want to taste the blue of those waves, but they break upon the shore with enough force that I was content to just watch and yearn.

After we had our fill of flowers and voracious mosquitoes, we visited the gift shop, of course, and then made our way to Hilo for a quick jaunt. I feel like there wasn't a proper introduction between this city and ourselves because I didn't end up caring too much for our short time there. Though, I just couldn't help feeling that since it was an older town with buildings dating back to the early 1900's and some areas had massive banyan trees, that there had to be something interesting about this town. However, since much of the downtown was in disrepair and there were homeless people digging through the trash, we just didn't connect and decided to leave.

Once back in Kona we ate dinner at the Lava Java Bistro and Cafe. The food served was all local, which was wonderful. We both had these amazing burgers (there's nothing like local, grass fed beef!) with a organic greens on the side. My Mom had also wanted a side of fries, which were hand cut. I'm not much of a fry person but these were goooood. It's likely that the guava bbq sauce (all proper fry consumption should be with bbq sauce) gave it a special kick. Dessert was a passion meringue tart - simply pure yum.