Hawaii - day 3

Monday, Dec 13: Here's the view from our hotel:

Breakfast at McDonalds, again.

This time we tried the Hawaiian breakfast platter. They also have a Huapia pie. Getting sick of McDonald's.

In the morning, we went to Rainbow Falls park.

At the top of the falls is a series of calm pools.

Very pretty, but full of mosquitoes. I got bitten several times. SC's mom recommends vitamin B1 (and lots of it; approx 30x RDA).

Along the path to the top of the falls is a huge banyan tree. A guy nearby said that it's about a hundred years old.

Wikipedia says they start as epiphytes growing on a host tree, eventually killing the host by covering it with its root structures. This one has already expanded out in a ring around itself.

From Rainbow Falls, we headed to the Mauna Loa's macadamia factory. These are plants I saw along the way:

The actual factory wasn't particularly interesting. The self-guided tour consisted of peering in through factory windows. And it's not exactly like Willy Wonka in there.

They did have a pretty garden, though:

Next, we headed towards the Kalapana lava viewing area. However, we had to wait because it doesn't open until 2pm. So we stopped at Lava Tree State Park.

This is the first time I've seen feral chickens! I still find them to be a somewhat strange phenomenon: chickens are not the sort of animal I'd expect to survive in the wild.

This forest was also the first we'd seen with such canopy trees:

Here (below) are the eponymous lava trees. We never found out exactly how they're formed, but it has something to do with the interaction between lava and trees.

This park was also home to a variety of other interesting flora:

From there, we headed to the lava viewing area. The vast expanses of black lava rock is a pretty amazing sight:

This (above) is from a fairly recent (Nov 24) lava flow. If you look west across it, you can see heat rising from the lava rock. We decided that isn't purely solar heating; the lava must still be warm from volcanic activity.

These plants are starting to colonize older flows. From the looks of it, though, they don't get very far before new lava comes along and kill everything off again.

People are also living here! All the lava you see is private property. The land isn't particularly cheap, either -- we talked to the security guards at the entrance (they're there to prevent tourists from parking on private property) and they told us how much the houses are selling for.

From Kalapana, we headed to the tide pools at Kapoho beach. There weren't many people there; you have to drive through a residential community to get there, and the beach itself belongs to the community, I think.

I am very fond of these plants. From a distance, they look like succulents, but they're actually folded leaves:

The Internet tells me that they're beach naupaka. Native to Hawaii, but an invasive species to Florida.

There were so many animals living in the tide pools! These snails are everywhere:

We also saw crabs, but they quickly scurry into crevices when they see you coming.

Some pools contained corals:

Given the fact that people wade in these pools, I'm surprised there are still so many corals. I guess the clear water helps people avoid them, and the sharp rocks are also a good deterrent.

In these areas with lots of corals, there is also a ton of fish! We spent a long time sitting by this pool, watching them. There are schools of catfish-like fish, fish that sit on rocks for long periods of time, fish chasing other fish, a few polka-dotted puffer-like fish, some butterflyfish, and many striped fish. If you pick a rock and just watch it, sooner or later a fish will swim out from under it. I'd seen aquariums like this, but I didn't think fish actually lived in such densities in the wild!

Here are some pictures of fishes:

Mouseover for identifications. I tried my best, using this site for reference. That's a pretty awesome site, by the way. Next time we go looking for fishes, we will consult their travels page for ideas.

Anyways, the Kopoho tide pools were pretty cool to see! It's given me a lot more context for aquarium setups. We watched fishes until sunset, then went searching for dinner.

We first consulted the GPS's restaurant directory, which sent us to a vacant building in the middle of a residential neighborhood. The iPhone was more helpful; we ended up eating at Sombat's Thai Cuisine. It had very high ratings on Yelp, but it really wasn't very impressive. Maybe San Jose has spoiled us...