Hilo and Black Sands

Beautiful sunshine this morning! We backtracked a bit first, a required trip back to the Punalu'u Bakery for a Malasada "donut" (World famous, we're told); they had been sold out when we stopped there late yesterday. Lots of pesky birds wanting a handout! (These birds looked a lot like the Red Crested Cardinals we saw on Oahu, but not exactly the same - maybe because we're on a different island?)

Then we stopped at the Punalu'u Black Beach State Park, a favorite place to see the endangered Hawaiian Green Turtle. We were very lucky to see two!! A beautiful beach, too. (This morning we were  not able to watch the USA v. Belgium Soccer match...darn!)

Then we headed back north, through Volcano and on to the coastal city of Hilo. Along the way we came across an orchid nursery and the Mona Loa Macadamia Nut Factory. The mac nuts are out of season so there was nothing going on, but they have a great gift shop and a snack bar for our lunch. A beautiful garden behind the store with lots of tropical plants. Imagine 250,000 mac trees on 2500 acres!

We were very disappointed with Hilo. It is a commercial/industrial port city. Obviously not a tourist destination, although we did spot cruise ship at the pier. We did, however, intentionally stop at the McDonald's to see if they really do offer Spam - they do not. That must be a myth! Hilo has many, many Banyan trees which are enormous!

Rain and drizzle most of the afternoon.

Back to Volcano to end our day with a delicious dinner at the Kilauea Lodge.  Up early in the morning, to catch our plane to Maui to meet back up with S&M.

Black Beach

There are 10-20 earthquakes a day up here!