Hawaii: Hilo Farmer's Market, Botanical Gardens, Akaka Falls (Day 8)

Our 8th day in Hawaii we decided to visit the eastern side of the island. When we went to leave, we noticed a baby gecko on the door of our white rental car. We shooed him safely off before we got going:

We started out the day snorkeling at Honaunau (again). Here are more of the videos that we shot there:

The find of the day was this larger fish, called a Bluefin Trevally. It looks like a smaller tuna, with a florescent blue glow along its back:

After snorkeling we drove across the middle of the island to reach Hilo. The western side alternated between lush green and blackened lava flows. The eastern side was much greener and more consistently livable than the western side. Lava fields were nowhere in sight. However, as soon as we crossed over to the eastern side we ran into a thick wall of fog that lasted for several miles:

We started at the Hilo farmers market, which we'd heard lots of great things about.

I mostly looked forward to seeing how inexpensive pineapples would be, but surprisingly they were still more ($3.50) than they cost in California. We bought a bunch of apple bananas, 3 jumbo avocados, and a coconut which we drank out of and then later ate:

The seed was almost as big as a racquetball

After the farmers market, we drove up the coast to the botanical gardens. There were some very complex and amazing flowers, but there wasn't nearly as much variety as at the San Francisco botanical gardens. Mostly the unique things we saw at the botanical gardens were over-sized leaves and things that otherwise wouldn't grow in a hotter climate. Some of the pictures that Alisha took are shown below:

After walking through the gardens, we drove a little further up the coast to Akaka Falls. This is 440-foot waterfall which formed a basin at the bottom. It was neat to just sit and watch the water hit and slowly carve away at the stone mountain. It was a lesson in persistence.