Hoolulu Cove

The following day (Saturday) we had booked ourselves in for an evening volcanoes tour. The bus picked us up at 11.30am and headed south. Again. A bit of a shame but for the first part of the day we followed much the same route we followed ourselves the previous day but at least we had someone to explain what we were looking at along the way.

Some Hawaiian island facts for you. The whole chain started because there is a magma dome or hot spot under the earth's crust pushing up lava hence creating the islands. The whole chain is moving north west so the oldest island is Kauai and Hawaii is the newest island. The next island is already under construction with the Loihi sea mount currently pushing up towards the surface 20 miles south west of Hawaii. The islands are the largest mountains on earth if measured from the sea floor. There are 5 active volcanoes on Hawaii with Kilauea erupting continuously since 1976 and adding something like 75 acres to the island.

There are about 180,000 residents of the Big Island. Wildlife is mostly introduced animals like pigs that came with the Polynesians, the black rat, and the indian mongoose. The mongoose was introduced to control the rats in the sugar cane but the rats are nocturnal and the mongoose isn't so the mongoose moved on to killing off a lot of Hawaiian native birds and are now considered a serious pest - similar to the Australian cane toad.

Anyhow back to our tour. Grant was our tour guide and took us to a coffee plantation, the black sands beach we had already visited, and then onto the Volcanoes National Park.

We walked around the rim of the Kilauea Iki crater which is a smaller crater next to the main one that is erupting. This crater erupted in 1959 and you can now walk across the bottom of it. Grant took us to the Thurston Lava Tube, these tubes are very common and form when hot lava starts to cool on the top and forms a crust which then insulates the lava flowing in the tube below. Once the lava stops flowing it drains away leaving the tube. It was interesting to walk through the tube can fill and empty a number of times so you can see lines on the walls showing the depth of the lava. In walking around the crater rim you can see big cracks in the ground where the crater will eventually crumble. It really makes you realise the power of nature and how little people can do to control it.

We left the crater and drove over to some steam vents. Really odd seeing clouds of steam rising out of the ground. We had dinner at a cafe near the crater, it used to be a US Military R&R camp but now days it is open to anyone to stay. After dinner it was on the the museum and the crater of Kilauea itself.

While Kilauea is still active it was pretty quiet. The lava is flowing but mostly into the sea through lava tubes so you don't get to see much. There is a small section flowing on the surface but you can only see it from the air. We could see the smoke and see the glow but didn't actually see it flowing.

After the volcano we drove up the eastern side of the island to the biggest city on Hawaii Hilo. We only saw the outer suburbs and lights before we headed west back to Kona. We stopped briefly to star gaze as we were up quite high and it was pretty spectacular.

Another thing that stood out was the different climates we went through. There was desert, rainforest, and just about everything in between. Amazingly they actually ski at the top of the mountains on Hawaii, no ski lifts or anything so people drive their cars up and ski down. Being so high the island generates its own weather so it can be blue sky all round but the mountains will be shrouded in mist and cloud.

In all it was a really interesting tour and Grant told us all about the Gods and the native Hawaiian beliefs behind the landscape and the volcanoes.

Tomorrow it is woo-hoo to Oahu!Read more