We left Hilo (thankfully) and drove north on the 19 highway towards Waimea and Honokaa. This is the wet side of the island, Hilo averages the most rainfall of any city in the USA, and consequently there is a lot of water and a lot of it falls.

We found a couple notable waterfalls from our guidebook (remind me to write about the guidebook later) and boy howdy, did that water fall. This is Akaka Falls, with a drop of about 410 feet. There is a concrete path that loops around it and another smaller fall and it’s pretty damn cool.

This was our first place-of-residence where we would meet the owner, all the others we had walked in with a key hidden somewhere. We drove back and forth numerous times trying to find the place, as the street numbers were going in the wrong direction. Went back to town for gas and directions, and it turns out that we needed to go past where it looked like the town ended and look for a pineapple sign.

Found the place and walked in, and our host was sitting in the living room as we opened the front screen door. She offered us tea and coffee, which was nice, and we settled in with some conversation.

That night, Miranda and I spent the evening playing some Agricola and chasing the house cat.

The place was called the Waipio Wayside. Nice place. LOTS of frogs at night. It was so bad that Miranda had to turn on a white noise generator on her phone, and I had to sleep with earplugs. Not a great sleep. In a smaller double bed. I think we’ve both been really tired recently because of bad sleep, and this didn’t help. But it was a decent place, with a pleasant host and breakfast made for us in the morning.

However, I was thankful when we left in the morning. Over breakfast and at night, certain things had been said that caused me to not really want to converse anymore with this lady. Nothing really bad, but the sort of thing where I just wanted to be quiet for a while. Horse riding in the morning in Waipio Valley provided that quiet time!