Sunday morning Adam and I decided to head for Waipi'o valley. It was basically on the exact other side of the island from us. We drove through ranch country on the slopes of Mauna Kea. There is a road down to the valley but is 4 wheel drive only. I was a little leary of driving down so we started to walk. Yeah, that wasn't a very good idea, so Adam went back up to get the jeep. That was a much better idea. Once I saw someone towing a boat down the road, I decided it was ok to drive. We turned the 'wrong way' at the bottom of the hill and went back into the 'natives' area, where people live. I don't think they like visitors much, so we caught sight of the waterfall and drove back through the river, to the beach. Because it was Labor Day weekend, the beach was pretty busy with locals. There was a huge party of people who drove their atv's down and had music and food going. It was really fun. The river was a great place for the kids to play without getting pummeled by the waves on the beach. The black sand beach was pretty much unbelievably amazingly beautiful. We walked the entire beach (really glad we drove down...)
Every time you go down to the beach, you find tsunami signs.
The river we forged a few times in the back of the valley. It was just like a mountain stream in the Smokey Mountains. Except it empties into the ocean.
A little friend who was interested in our lunch
I think I still have black sand stuck under my toe nails.
Listening to the locals behind us was highly entertaining.
I realized how different the ocean looked through my polarized sunglasses versus my phone camera, so I took a picture through my sunglasses. Worked pretty well!
