When we visited the Big Island for the first time last year, we braved the rain to see the Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden on the Hilo side of the island on our last day here.
We wanted to make a return visit on this year’s trip, and today was a great day – it was bright and sunny and not too too hot! There weren’t even a lot of mosquitos (spraying ourselves with DEET might have helped, too).
We spent more than two hours in the garden, and I took too many photos again; here are some of the best ones.
We were quite ready for lunch by the time we’d finished in the gardens. We couldn’t return to the place we ate at last year (What’s Shakin’) because they’re closed on Sundays; the people at the garden recommended Pi’ilani Kitchen, a small restaurant a couple of miles up the road that opened earlier this year. It was delicious. We each had their special of the day, a generous portion of seared ahi on an excellent salad…and it cost all of $19. Not quite worth the trip to Hawai’i, but definitely worth stopping for!
After lunch, we stopped at a “Scenic Point” sign along Highway 19; the view wasn’t much, but there was a sign telling the story of the town of Laupāhoehoe, which suffered greatly in the Tsunami of 1946 – we could see a little of Laupāhoehoe Point and decided to drive down there and see more.
There’s a park where the school and pier used to be (including a memorial to those who died in the tsunami, as well as reprints of newspaper articles from 1946 telling the stories of some of the survivors). People were enjoying themselves, both in the water and on the land, and there was plenty of surf and spray.
We drove back to the resort to enjoy the sunset and a foofy drink from our balcony, then we walked across the street to Kings Shops and had gelato for dinner.
