19 September

Today is waterfall day, but to start things off on the right note we stopped off at the site of a great tragedy. On April Fools Day in 1946 a set of tidal waves washed over a small sugar cane town. Among the lost were a class of children. The road to the site is beautiful as is the view. Tony stopped to take a photo of the view and caught Monica looking back at him.

With our morbid stop of the day done, we went on to Akaka Falls. The falls are pretty, but the real treat is the trail to them which included a beautiful grove of ferns and bamboo trees. We also had a good hike down to the "Boiling Pots" below Pe'epe'e falls. It required us to scramble down a trail that is maintained by locals. Picture steep, shaky rocks and overgrown brush. We wanted to get to the pool directly below the falls, but doing so required us to get rather wet. So we sat on the rocks for a while and enjoyed the view happy in the knowledge we had covered ourselves in mosquito repellent. After a while we left and drove around Hilo, the largest city on the Island.

From Hilo we drove back across the Island to look for petroglyphs. The park closed at 6:30 and we got there are 5:45. We managed to go half way down the wrong trail before backtracking, finding the right trail, and making our way through dirt and low hanging brush to the petroglyph area. On the path we found an offering of leis hanging on the trees. It was eerily quiet with a lone bird calling. Monica swears she could hear the sound of stone hitting stone - the sound of petroglyphs being created. By the time we got to the petroglyphs Tony was anxious about the park closing and getting locked in, so we spent about 10 minutes looking at the petroglyphs before tromping back to the car. Tony barely got a photo of the sun setting at 6:29. We had dressed to go to dinner at the Fairmont hotel nearby. So, after brushing the fine dirt off our shoes and clothing, we walked into the swank hotel. After a bit of meandering through the marble halls, we found the restaurant...closed for the night. Frustrated we headed towards home and found food at a Chinese Restaurant in the Kings Shops area off Waikola Beach Road.

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