Saturday – exploring the east coast

We drove into town this morning and visited the infamous Hilo Farmer’s Market.

We browsed the hundred odd stalls, that sold every kind of strangely named and looking fruit, vegetable and flower.  The highlight was the craft market that sat adjacent, where we picked up some knickknacks to take home.  Before we left we bought one of Hawaii’s most popular foods to try – spam musubi, a rice block with a slice of spam on top, wrapped in a sheet of seaweed.  Ben also bought one of his favourite tropical fruits – rambutan.

This morning we headed out of Hilo, driving north to explore the Hamakua coast, stopping first at the picturesque Onomea Bay.

The highway north took us through old sugar plantation towns, with main streets lined with old wooden buildings, little had changed in these places for over 100 years.

We arrived at the beautiful Waipi’o Valley at lunchtime, the viewpoint signalling the end of the highway north.  The valley was spectacular, from our vantage point above we could see small farms down below, all of which are still owned by the families that were here prior to Cook’s arrival.

We decided to continue today's food theme of eating traditional Hawaiian foods, stopping at a local drive-in to try ‘loco moco’.

The loco moco is a bowl of rice, topped with a hamburger patty and fried egg, and coated with a portion of brown gravy – a very weird combination!  We finished the meal off with a malasada, a sugary hole less donut with filling.

Possibly our most interesting lunch to date in Hawaii!

As we retraced our footsteps we stopped just outside of Hilo at Akaka Falls.  The nature walk took us through beautiful lush green undergrowth, where there were several colourful flowers in bloom.

As we neared the falls they were an impressive sight, the water plummeting 420ft over a moss covered cliff.

As we walked back to the car the heavens opened and Ben took cover under a banana tree leaf.

Back at the hostel we spent the rest of the day chilling out, and sampling the local beer from the Mehana Brewery.  The ‘Pipeline’ was both of our favourite, a porter made with real Kona coffee!