Big Island Day 2

Our first full day on the Big Island was spent at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. From the hotel, it's about two and a half hours drive to the park, so we got up early to make the most of our day. The drive took us past Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa and through Hilo before we finally got to the national park. When we got there, it wasn't too busy, but it was nearly 10:00 so it was definitely starting to pick up. 

Our first activity was the Kilauea Iki Crater hike. I love this hike and did it every Christmas vacation when we lived in Hawaii. It was a nostalgic walk for me, but also really fun to share it with Allan this time. We walked through the forest along the top edge of the crater, every now and then getting a glimpse down inside. The inside of the crater was formed by a lava lake from the 1959 eruption. It is one of the coolest parts of the hike. After we walked halfway around the crater, we began the switchbacks down into the former lava lake. 

Once in the crater, Allan was loving all of the different colors, shapes, and textures of the lava rocks. Early on into the walk, I spotted all of the volcanic glass, Pele's Hair as it is known in Hawaii (Pele is the volcano goddess). Pele's Hair is thin, hair-like volcanic glass, and it was everywhere. With nearby Halemaumau Crater erupting, the lava is blown up in an episode and this sometimes results in the thin volcanic glass forming and blowing around the area. There was so much of it in the crater, and there was even a warning when driving around the park for volcanic glass tumbleweeds!

We continued our walk through the crater with Allan running up and down piles of lava. We got to the other side, and had to climb back out via many switchbacks in the forest. This was always my least favorite part of the hike, and turns out it still is! It just feels like it takes an eternity climbing back up. We finally got back out and made our way across the street to Thurston Lava Tube. 

It's a short walk down into the lava tube. The big opening was just as I remembered it with greenery hanging around everywhere. We walked into the dimly lit, damp lava tube. It's not a long section that you can walk through, but is crazy how round it is to be created by nature and the flow of lava. Back out the other side, we walked back up and finished the rest of the Kilauea Iki trail. We were just about back to the car when we ran into a volunteer ranger talking with a group of tourists and showing them the live feed of the volcanic eruption. It was starting to spout and the lava was very obvious. He told us that it was most likely going to fountain at some point today and gave us some good places to go and see it once it did. We were so excited that we picked today to come to the park!

After the hike and lava tube, we decided to head over to Volcano House, one of the places with a view into Halemaumau Crater. By the time we got there, the lava wasn't spouting as much, but every now and then we got a glimpse of the orange. After staying there for a couple of hours, eating lunch, and seeing no change, we decided to go to Volcanic Winery about 10 minutes away.

At the winery we sampled six wines: 2 red, 2 white, and 2 dessert. They were all pretty standard, but the interesting one was the macadamia honey wine. Unsurprisingly, it is an award winner and it was pretty good. Having already bought plenty of wine in Australia, we resisted temptation to buy any more. In the winery, the live feed for the eruption was on TV, so we kept a close eye on it just in case we had to head back in a hurry. 

After our wine, we drove Chain of Craters Road. Along this stretch of road in the national park are tons of craters formed from all of the volcanic eruptions here. We also drove down to the coast to see the lava arch and the lava flow from an eruption that I saw here when I was a kid. It was like remembering a dream going down there and walking along the same deserted road along the coast that I remember walking with my family to go and see the lava flow into the ocean.

Once Allan had stopped at all the eruption signs along the road, we drove back up from the coast. It was dark now, so we decided to try and go see the lava. We parked near destruction trail, where earthquakes and eruptions destroyed part of Crater Road. With head torch on, we made our way down the road about half an hour before coming to the viewpoint where we could see down into Halemaumau. There were plenty of other people here too, all sitting, watching, and waiting for the potential lava fountain to start. Every now and again, we would be able to hear the lava roaring and spluttering, even from the distance. 

We waited for over an hour, but nothing happened, and it started to get late. We had a long drive still to get back to the hotel. Around 9:30/10:00pm we gave up on the lava fountain and walked back to the car. Feeling a little bit bummed we didn't see the huge lava, it wasn't a total loss because the dark night sky and the bright orange lava glow meant that we did see some lava. We planned to keep an eye on it over the next couple of days, just in case.

The drive back to the hotel felt like an eternity. We were pretty tired by the time we got back and luckily managed to catch the last monorail heading towards our building. After some quick showers, we fell into bed.Read more