After my restless night in my car in Kokee State Park and the sunrise from the lookout I headed on a road trip to the other side of the island. It should be noted that this island is really rather small and this doesn’t take long :). It is about 40km by 53km and is geologically the oldest of the island chain (first to be created over the hot spot).
First stop was Kilauea Lighthouse lookout- with the lighthouse in the background and lots of red footed boobys flying around and stretching their red feet in for landing.
Hereafter I headed out to Anini Beach- where there was supposed to be great snorkelling. I did spot two interesting creatures: a young eel (maybe moray?) and trumpet fish, but again, the visibility was not great and the variety of species was pretty poor. I also saw the national fish with the awesome local name of humuhumunukunukuapua’a fish!!! Now that;s a mouthful1! It can be translated as the pasted together fish as it looks like different fish buts pasted together 🙂
The Hanalei Valley lookout boasts great views of taro root plantations (used to be sugar cane in the past but this became prohibitive due to shipping & labour costs). I continued down the road to Hanalei settlement through a very traffic congested section due to road closure for maintenance after huge storm damage from a storm of a year ago which did massive damage all along this coast. The town is very tourist- centric, as are most here, and boasts a large protected bay. It was very muddy- far into the bay and thus didn’t have the picturesque turquoise waters. I did have a pizza and iced coffee before heading to my accommodation in the golf course community of Princeville- and yes- it is as fancy pants as it sounds.
A bit off timing wise, on my return to Lihue, I stopped at Opaekaa Falls and Kapa’a town for coffee. The town has an older, historic center that reminds one of old western movies.
