We'd decided in the morning after a lazy breakfast that we would follow Dave and Sue on a trip up island. There are a lot of art communities the further North you seem to go. It's definitely whale season because as we were driving, on the right side was perfect views of the ocean and you'd see whale after whale breaching and jumping. We stopped at several lookout spots to watch them with the binoculars and without. I was pretty lucky because I was on the ocean-side of the car and had good views of the whales all the time. There were a few particularly big splashes. Sometimes you'd miss the breach, but you'd notice the spray afterwards.

Once we got further up the island, we didn't have such a good view of the ocean, but instead got some really twisty roads through some cool trees and cliffs. However, Zach was bemoaning that it was his personal hell because he was stuck in the back of the car while watching Sue and Dave in the BMW infront of us going VERY slowly. He just wants to drive a nice car fast around the twists and turns. It was a much longer drive than we were expecting, but worth it in the end.

We finally stopped at Pololu Valley. It's the end of the road there and it just has a tiny parking lot right on the edge of the cliff. We had to park on the side of the road because everywhere else was full. We walked down to the lookout, and what a view it was! It looks like something straight from Jurassic Park. Maybe it was. There was a trail that lead down to the beach, but there were many warning signs and the path we just mud. Since it had been raining on the north of the island the past week, it didn't seem very safe to take the hour trek down and then back up again, even if it did look like a beautiful beach. We decided to leave it and maybe come back if we ever visited again.

On our way back (after turning around on that small cliff road) we stopped at a fruit stand to pick up a snack for the drive back. We got a starfruit, some passion fruit, a pineapple and a couple other bits. Zach had never tried passion fruit before and the stand people were nice enough to open it up for us and give us spoons to take the guts out with. Zach had never had starfruit either, and wasn't too thrilled about it, so I ate it all. It's nice to have organically-grown picked-that-day fruit.

On our way back we took a little detour down to Keokea beach park to watch body surfers. We'd just gone down to take a look at the beach, but there seemed to be a group of people hanging out on a rocky outcrop near the ocean. There were quite a few people up there, and although it was a bit tough scrambling over the big, wet rocks to get a good view, it was worth it. The waves were huge, and every time one broke, it was a beautiful blue colour. The amazing thing, however, were the body surfers that were riding the big waves. Although the waves were big, that wasn't the dangerous part. The dangerous thing was the waves moved right into, and broke, upon the giant rocks we were sitting on. So, they had to have both fantastic manouvering skills to keep to boards from crashing into the rocks, and they had to be fantastic swimmers to stay far enough away. Quite impressive.

And then, on our way back to the condo we spent a bit of time in some of art stores in the small towns along the way. I found a pair of glass earrings that were lovely. Looked at some handmade ukelele's that were lovely too. If only I could play.