Day 4 - Queens Bath, Lava Pools

Today we woke up and decided to head to Queens Bath, which is a big lava swimming pool near Princeville. It was a really nice, sunny morning, and its only a few minute drive over there. It was a bit of a challenge to find the actual entrance, but we eventually found it. Its kind of tucked away in this "town" called Princeville, but its really a gated community full of rich golfers mucking about. Its really a departure from the other places on the north shore, which are really laid back and relaxed with more of a small town feel. This place felt the exact opposite, with every landscape very well manicured, and people jogging in their expensive shorts alongside the road.

The path down to the ocean was really nice, with a little stream alongside. We got there early enough that it was pretty empty still. We walked past a little area full of white-ish pine needles on the ground, but it looked more like something out of Harry Potter with spiderwebs all over the ground. Christie thought it looked like the spiders discarded legs. If it weren't in the middle of a sunny tropical island, it might have been a little creepy. Anyways, we walked down to the bath itself, and it was surprisingly large. There were only a couple of people in there, so we decided to hop on in.

The pool itself is set back a few feet from the open ocean and its like a gigantic, 10 foot deep tide pool. The waves spill in as they break onto the rocks and its chock full of fish. We brought our snorkel masks, but left the fins at home since its so small you don't need them. I have no idea what kinds of fish were in there, but there were lots of them, and they were really tame. Christie and I swam for a bit, then she got out to explore the area and I kept swimming. After an hour or maybe and hour and a half, we got out to poke around and looked back to see throngs of people coming down. We jetted on out, and stopped down on some rocks to look out onto the ocean. While watching, we saw a sea turtle (or maybe 2) swimming in the water, it was pretty cool.

After the bath, we headed to Hanelei bay to watch some surfing lessons. We snagged a couple of sandwiches and a huge beer at the grocery store on the way and had a little beach picnic. The surf was pretty small in the bay, so the surfing was pretty boring. We swam a bit, then made the fatal mistake of laying out in the sun at noon without enough sunblock. Bad move, and we are both a bit burned for it.

We were feeling a little scorched, so we drove over to a little lava pool hike we had read about. According to the guide, it was a very short hike at the end of a 4 wheel drive road. Now, I have never driven any 4 wheel trails before, and I assumed it was just a dirt road. Boy was I wrong... This thing was a super steep grade downhill, and the middle of it was all eroded out, and it was super bumpy. It really felt like a car should not be allowed on it, but we drove on anyways because thats why I rented a jeep. It freaked out Christie pretty good :)

Once to the bottom, we went over a small hill and found the pools, it was basically a bunch of tide pools, with some huge pieces of rusty old machinery spread about. Apparently the sugar company used to push their old pieces of equipment off the cliff above onto the lava shelf to be discarded. Some of the pools had small fish and crabs in them, and it was really remote. We didn't see any other people on the way out there, and overhead was a bird sanctuary with lots of birds riding the thermals over our heads. Toward the end, we were really starting to feel the sun beat down and decided we needed to get inside.

On the way home, we saw the sun start to set and had to stop and enjoy it for a minute before jumping in the hot tub and having a beer. Enjoy the pictures!