Hawaii Day Five - Exploring the North Coast

On Thursday, November 6th we rented a car and started touring the island on our own. When we went to pick up our car at the airport they offered me a Suburban at first, but with gas prices so high I asked for something smaller and they gave us a Mustang convertible, which we were completely happy with. Our first destination was a town on the north coast called Princeville, where we had heard about some swimable (at low tide) tide pools called "The Queen's Bath". On the way there we stopped at several scenic lookouts. We didn't know exactly where they were, but we took a chance and by luck or whatever we drove right there. We parked high on a cliff and then had to climb down a muddy trail to the rocks. When we arrived we found that the tide was coming in and the pools were very dangerous so we took some pictures but didn't get too close for risk of being swept out to sea. After visiting the tide pools we continued driving north until the road ended at Ke'e park, which was closed due to heavy surf. The drive was very pretty and we stopped a lot. We had dinner at a local burger place, and got home just as it was getting dark.

Our fun convertable

The Queen's Bath area from the top of the cliff. You can see one of the pools at the bottom of the picture just to the right of the center and another just left of center.

This is a taro plantation where they grow the plant from which poi is made of. If you look carefully in the river you can see two kayaks

Admiring the view...

Some of the houses near the beach are built to survive hurricane tidal surges

Jane tries a coconut. The Hawaiian guy that sold it to us got them off of local trees and loads them in his pickup truck and sells them at a camping beach where we stopped to look at some neat caves

Machete expert opens the coconut

Brave Jane tries the coconut milk

This philodendron is the same kind of plant we've had in our homes, only the rainy climate helps it grow MUCH bigger. The cave we explored is right behind Jane in the photo.

Inside a tidal cave

We stopped to look at a waterfall and while I was getting the camera ready one of the local chickens was trying to figure out if Jane had something to eat in there. Jane is holding a newspaper ready to give battle

Here is the waterfall. If you look closely you can see that someone has a house just above it