Brad and Lindsey Posenjak: Hawaii... aww yeah (part 2)

Early Monday morning Aaron and I headed out to La Perouse Bay for a chance to see some dolphins. We geared up in our dive equipment and swam out, and out, and out. We probably ended up swimming out a quarter mile. We paused to rest for a few minutes and all that was below us was water and sand. We started to think we might have expended large amounts of energy for nothing. After a short rest we snorkeled out a little further when all of a sudden both Aaron and I stopped and poked our heads out of the water. We looked at each other and said, "Did you hear that squeeking?" We looked back down and a few dolphins darted by below us. We immediately let the air out of our BCDs and decended just 40 feet down to the sandy bottom. Aaron got out his dive knife and tapped on his tank to make a little noise. Pretty soon we had at least 17 spinner dolphins gliding around us. They typically kept their distance about 30 feet away, but on occasion they came within five feet of us. We enjoyed the serene experience for about 15 minutes before they got bored and left us. When we got out, we couldn't help our big dopey grins!

Road to Hana

Lindsey and I heard mixed reviews about attempting the road to Hana journey. It is a long windy (and sometimes one lane) road that wraps through some of the most beautiful scenery I have ever seen. We got up early to beat the rush and headed out around 6:30. Even before we got the road to Hana, we were treated to a lovely rainbow. This delayed us a few mintues...

This was a sign of things to come - both in beauty and weather. Dark rain clouds with small sun breaks was what the weather had in store for us. We were blasted by a heavy downpour as we started down the curvy road. The rain slowed as we pulled off at our first unmarked pullout. We had to duck under a barbed wire fence and walk down a slippery trail along a very steep cliff, but the view was that of a 200 foot waterfall!

At our second stop, there was supposedly a neat little waterfall with a pool to cool off in. The rain started pounding again, but regardless, we decided to check it out. It probably wasn't worth getting drenched, but we had fun on our little adventure. I posted this blurry picture of the pool just to show the rain pounding on the water.

Next, we pulled off to the side of the road to get a few scenic pictures of the ocean and of our(drenched)selves.

There were many neat little one-lane bridges that we got to drive over. This one had a really neat waterfall that could be seen right from the bridge. There was very limited parking for this waterfall, so we had to walk a little ways to get back to the bridge. Of course it wasn't raining when we got out of the car, but the downpour hit us a few mintues after we got to the triple falls...

The next stop took us about 20 minutes off the road to Hana on Nahiku road. The guide book we were reading told of its beauty... we questioned the value of this side road until we got to the end of the road...

Check out the 360 degree view at http://occip.it/pt4tx6b1 (sorry it's a little washed out).

Kahanu Tropical Gardens - now that place sounds cool right? Especially if you have to pay $10 per person to enter. Well, we were wrong. Not worth the $20 we paid. As soon as we got out into an open field, you guessed it... down pour!

I can't say the $20 was all a loss. They did have a restroom. The highlight was a spider, seeing coconuts actually fall from a tree, and an ocean view that wasn't too bad. Oh, there was also some huge temple thing made of stacked volcanic rock... but since you couldn't explore or climb on it, I was bored with it.

We finished all this sight seeing by 12:30 and we were getting hungry now, so on to Waianapanapa State Park! This is a pretty neat park that has all kinds of neat volcanic rock formations, lava tubes, and caves.