Hawaii - Jeff Campbell [221]
The park has rest rooms, outdoor showers, water, covered pavilions and electricity. Weekends can be busy with locals and families; midweek is quieter. There’S no swimming.
Up by the highway the Laupahoehoe Train Museum (962-6300; www.thetrainmuseum.com; adult/child 4-18 $4/2; 9am-4:30pm Mon-Fri, 10am-2pm Sat & Sun) lovingly preserves Hawai′i’S long-gone railroad and sugar plantation era – it’S chock-full of photos and ephemera, including ‘Rusty’ the switch engine and a model railroad. The porch has model trains for kids to play with. Continue past the museum into town, and you’ll find a ’50s-style diner.
Laupahoehoe is on Hwy 19, midway between Honoka′a and Hilo. Near the 27-mile marker a ‘Laupahoehoe Point’ sign leads you down the steep winding road to the coast, while the museum is visible from the highway between the 25- and 26-mile markers.
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KOLEKOLE BEACH PARK
This grassy park set dramatically beneath a highway bridge is great for an afternoon picnic. Facilities are run down (there’S no drinking water), but there’S nothing wrong with the trim wide lawn, Kolekole Stream or the rocky beach. Locals love to bodyboard and surf here, but it’S not good for ocean swimming.
You can tent camp with a county permit (Click here), but weekends sees this spot get crowded with picnicking families. There are better choices.
To get here, turn inland off Hwy 19 at the southern end of the Kolekole Bridge, south of the 15-mile marker.
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HONOMU
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Like Honoka′a, Honomu is an old sugar town whose neat, false-fronted buildings could pass for an old Western movie set. It’S a pleasurable stop on your way to or from Akaka Falls; the single main street holds a bakery, pizza parlor, Buddhist temple and several gift shops. The town, falls and Hwy 220 (which leads to both) are clearly signed from Hwy 19 between the 13- and 14-mile markers.
Woodshop Gallery & Cafe (963-6363; www.woodshopgallery.com; lunch dishes $6-9; 11am-5:30pm) is the largest gallery, with an excellent selection of prints, crafts and wood carvings. The small café isn’t bad, serving an above average ahi sandwich, plate lunches and burgers.
You needn’t be a Buddhist to stay at Akiko’S Buddhist B&B (963-6422; www.alternative-hawaii.com/akiko; s/d $65/75, cottages $65-85), but it helps to want a humble meditative retreat. Accommodations are clean-swept but bare bones. Monastery rooms lack doors and have futons on the floor; the adjacent house provides twin beds and all share baths. Two solar-powered cottages are simplicity itself. Truly, the draw is the atmosphere. The monastery, a former gas station, is now, Akiko says, a ‘human service station’ for those needing a ‘tune up.’ Akiko’S is in Wailea, 2 miles north of Honomu; call for directions.
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AKAKA FALLS STATE PARK
The only way these impressive falls could be easier to reach would be to put them in the parking lot – but then you’d miss the enchanting half-mile loop trail through the rain forest, whose dense foliage includes banyan and monkeypod trees, massive philodendrons, fragrant ginger, dangling heliconia, orchids and gigantic bamboo groves.
Follow the park’S advice and start by heading to the right: you come first to 100ft Kahuna Falls, which strikes you as the perfect Hawaiian cascade, for about as long as it takes to reach its neighbor. Then, when you see 420ft Akaka Falls, you can swoon properly: the water tumbles majestically down a moss and fern-draped cliff, its spray sometimes painting a rainbow.
From Hwy 19 the falls are about 4 miles inland on Hwy 220.
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PEPE′EKEO 4-MILE SCENIC DRIVE
Between Honomu and Hilo, a 4-mile scenic loop off Hwy 19 is a majestic