I wake up this morning glad that we didn't camp out in the rain last night which hadn't stopped. In fact it hasn't stopped. Yuk. It feels pretty chilly around the place but the computer reports 15C. Hmm. We have a nice breakfast and a bit of a chinwag with one of the other guests. Come 10 o'clock by the time we're ready to go, the rain has stopped.
We head down to Hilo for some film for Helen and on the way decide to look into some other accomodation possibilities. There is a B+B offering a good deal (US$100 for three nights) but turns out it was a previous owner who did no upkeep. Besides the price hike there's no room as there's a hula festival in town this week. D'oh! We decide to investigate the camping option. There are two offices mentioned: State Parks and State Forestry. The Parks place is broadly identified as one of two large country buildings so we head for the Forestry place. I'd like some advice on camping permits, please. I respond to her inquiry. What kind of camping?
she asks me. In a tent?
We establish that I'm after state campgrounds so she identifies the previous building(s) [as where to go]. I suggested it was a big complicated building, hinting at some directions, please. Oh, no, it's not empty. We have our courthouse in there.
Right.
We do get directions to somewhere inside the County Building. Picking one [of the two] we park outside for a few minutes partly because it's raining and partly because we can't decide if we need to stick a quarter in the parking meter. Based on other people, we pay up. I go in and get metal detected, find the Parks office and get the bad news. Of the dozen or so State Parks you can only lodge (almost as expensive as B+B but without the comforts or +B) or camp in five. Two of which are closed because their water systems are bust. The permit system is more of a reservation system than a permit. He pulls a copy of the County Park campgrounds out but they're much the same except the permits are issued from a third building in the complex. And it's raining all over the island and the one place it isn't the wind is blasting sand from the beach everywhere. I guess we'll be B+Bing then, for a while.
We decide to head north, missing Hilo's history and noting only that it is the wettest city in the US with almost 300 days of rain. We make a couple of diversions along Scenic Routes without much to say. We did go to the Akala Falls which at 400ft or so are quite impressive. You get to see the bottom of the falls as well which is quite rare. 
We looked at a campground at Kalopa State Park but were put off by possibly being the only campers. Isolation is a bit scary -- Hawaiian campsites attract late night drinkers and thefts.
A few miles further north the road ends abruptly at Waipio Valley, the largest of seven valley fingers in the north east coast. The valley is 2000ft deep, a mile wide at the sea mouth and seven miles long. It's quite impressive. We didn't venture in. You can walk or take your 4x4 down the 25% incline. Instead, it being late afternoon and still unsure of where to stay we headed for Waimea (or Kameula) via a backroad. That road passed some of the ranching grounds of the paniolo, the Hawaiian cowboys of Spanish American descent. Here grassy knobbly plains stretch away into the centre of the island. Quite a surprise from the usual rainforest or bleak volcanic vista.
In Waimea we stopped at the Kameula Inn and accepted the US$85 charge for a room. That was supplemented by another US$9.75 charge, possibly because I used a travellers cheque. Possibly because we didn't see the small print re: taxes. Still, it's a nice room. Dinner was at the local Parker Ranch Steak House which was very good and relatively speaking a snip at US$42.
Kameula Inn, Waimea, Big Island N20.02353 W155.67537 Elev. 803m
Copyright 2003 Ian Fitchet. All rights reserved.