Hawaii day 4

Tuesday morning I was woken up by the sound of the rooster crowing. I found us the most amazing place to stay that night. We stayed at an old sugar cane plantation named Pahala Plantation Cottages.

It was so awesome. It is kind of set up like a bed and breakfast with several little cottages that you can stay in. All the cottages were booked so we are in the huge plantation house and we had it all to ourselves! Julia, the owner, told us a little history about this place. It was a working sugar cane plantation for over 150 years until 1996. It was left empty for a while then she bought it and started restoring it. 

Each room is filled with antique furniture and pictures of Hawaiian art  

or Native people. 

Andrew and I were awake before the kids so we took a chance to enjoy each other. We walked around outside holding hands, talking and looking at the beautiful plants. 

Just a little funny; Lance kept saying we were staying at a "cobbage". 

The plantation house was perfect for playing hide and seek!! I couldn't resist the urge.  The rules were easy. Don't climb into any beds that we didn't sleep in and don't climb on the furniture. O My Goodness!!! It was so much fun!!! 

We left the plantation and headed towards Kalea to the green sand beach.

The green sand beach is about a 3.5 mile dusty walk. You can drive there, but four wheel drive is a must. The locals offer rides for $15 each. I haggled one local down to $40 for the 4 of us. When we arrived at the green sand beach we were in for a big surprise. The beach was straight off a cliff! We took a very steep path down the side of the cliff to the beach. The sand looked more golden than green. A man was there who was a jeweler and had a little eye piece that you could tell the sand was green and yellow. The waves at the beach were a little rough so we spent our time playing in the sand. This beach was also windy which made it very hard to spray on sunscreen. Needless to say, mom and dad got burnt. Lexie was so funny at the beach. She would roll in the sand and say she was a "black dog" then she would climb up on a rock and howl. On the way up the cliff she asked "what color beach we going to next?". So far we had been to a white sand beach, black sand beach and a green sand beach.

Our next stop was at Punalu'u Black Sand Beach.

This was my favorite beach of all!!! There were sea turtles everywhere.

It really was amazing! We were able to get up close and personal with the turtles. Lance and I were snorkeling when one swam right under us.

We had to fight the urge to touch the turtles (it's a huge fine!). I think Lexie's favorite part was the ducks in the little pond near the beach. Punalu'u has showers so we were able to wash off before heading into Hilo. 

We stayed at the Hilo Hawaiian Hotel which was located on beautiful banyan drive. Banyan drive is named after all the huge banyan trees that are planted all along the road. Each banyan tree is named after the person who planted in. The one directly in front of our hotel was named after Babe Ruth. That evening we took a stroll along Banyan. The kids loved hiding inside the trees. We walked across a little foot bridge to Coconut island.

It was so beautiful there. We watched a group of people exercising.

Lance decided to join in for a bit. We watched the sunset then headed to dinner.