Tue, Oct 29: Driving the north island, Vanilla company

Drove to north point of the big island.  Not much there but a private landing strip.

This is the original King Kamehameha statue.  Forged in Florence, Italy in 1880, the ship that was ferrying it to Honolulu sank off the Falkland Islands. Believed to have been lost at sea, a replacement statue was commissioned and was erected in Downtown Honolulu.  However, the original statue was miraculously found and recovered in 1912. The restored statue was then installed near Kamehameha’s birthplace at Kapaau.

Watch out for those coconuts!

Stopped at Pololu Valley overlook.  Beautiful valley, with a trail to go down,

but we had a lunch engagement at the Hawaiian Vanilla Company...
Very interesting and delicious lunch - everything served has vanlla in it.  They also gave a presentation on growing the vanilla plant.  It is the second most expensive spice after saffron, in large part because it is very labor intensive.  The flowers must be hand pollinated, and only bloom one day a year for 4 hours - fortunately not all at the same time.  They gave a presentation on how they prepared each item on the menu, how the vailla plants are raised, and how to make your own vanilla extract.

We then walked to the shade house to see the vanilla plants, which take four years to mature and start producing beans.

We then drove on toward Hilo: