North Kohala Coast

Not everyone loved the beach as much as our clans, so today we decided to road trip it up instead. We headed up to the north end of the Big Island. We had never explored that end of the island before, so we didn't know what to expect. But Mark didn't care, whatever the day had in store for us didn't matter... he was just THRILLED to be driving this bad boy.

Our first stop was in Waikoloa Village. Mark's mom had done some research and had read about a Farmer's market that sells fresh island produce. It wasn't quite what we were expecting - it was just one small table set up in a church parking lot - but we still walked away with a box full of fresh fruit, so it was still a fruitful stop :)

We then took a scenic drive up Kohala Mountain Road. At one point we were 3500 feet above sea level and could see Maui off in the distance. We stopped in Hawi (which was once a major plantation town) for ice cream.

We then continued our drive onto the Akoni Pule Highway towards Waimea. We stopped at Spencer Beach State Park for lunch. At this point it was 91 degrees. Logan begged and begged and begged to go in the ocean - but, our road trip wasn't done yet, so we had one crabby little boy on our hands,

Our last stop was at the Hamakua Macadamia Nut factory.





We learnt about how macadamia's grow, how they're harvested and how they're prepared. We all got to try our hands at cracking the nuts.

We also then got to sample a bunch of the nuts - they had a wide variety of flavors, including wasabi and spam.

We then spent the remainder of the afternoon swimming in the pool. Katie again LOVED the water as much as Logan and spent the entire time in the pool. Carson napped in the condo (our baby monitor reached no problem).