As previously threatened - more fun warning signs. This one is at the Hawaii Tropical Botanical Gardens which are just a little ways north of Hilo along the coast. This was not a preplanned stop for us, but we drove past it and it sounded interesting and actually we quite enjoyed it.

There are so many different unusual plants here that we could make a page of just that. if you're planning to visit the gardens, the parking lot and visitor center are at the top. It's all downhill from there, literally, to the coast. Of course that means the way back is all uphill. The paths are nicely shaded and everything has a tropical jungle feel to it, perhaps because it's a tropical jungle.

We don't have a lot of pictures of Hilo itself, even though that was our base of operations. We ate dinner there at night, visited the farmer's market and went to Richardson Ocean Park to see plenty of sea turtles.

Meanwhile, back at the tropical gardens, these are anthurium and they have gigantic leaves with little keyhole shaped gaps that you could look through if you were so inclined.

Here is one more weird and wonderful flower before we move on to something else.

Like the coast! Here it is, the bay at the bottom of the tropical gardens. This is a good place to have a snack and not think about how far it is back up to your car.

Just slightly further north from the gardens is Akaka Falls State Park. This was our intended destination and it makes a nice little day trip combined with the gardens. There is basically a loop hike here that includes the falls, or if you're in a hurry you can skip the loop and go directly to the falls. The hike is worth it though, it's a pleasant walk.

Akaka Falls itself is quite impressive. There aren't many places where you can see the whole thing at once. The park also has a "smaller falls". That would be Kahuna Falls which is 300 ft (90 m) high! It's only small compared to Akaka.

And now... a break for food. Here we are back in Hilo having the Hawaiian classic - loco moco. This is white rice with a hamburger patty, a fried egg and brown gravy. You probably wouldn't want this too often, but then we aren't in Hawaii very often. Extra tasty after a long hike.

Kaumana Lava Caves are located on the west side of Hilo, they are just off Kaumana Drive where there is a roadside parking area. These are relatively small areas to explore. Bring a headlight / flashlight / phone as it is an explore on your own sort of setup.

When we left Hilo for the west side of the island we chose to go up and over the saddle road, so named because it traverses the saddle between Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa. This is scenic, and a fun drive and it's like you've left the island entirely and gone somewhere else while you're up there. It's a high altitude barren landscape in many places, full of old cinder cones and craters.

There's a visitor center and bookstore part way up to the summit of Mauna Kea. We wandered around up there for a little while. This plant is called a silversword and they are plentiful near the visitor center.

Yes, this is a real warning sign too. We couldn't choose between the Invisble Cows and the Falling Fruit so we had to include them both.