FIFTY STATES AWAYWe woke to some more of that lovely gentle tropical rain today, much need after being in what feels like a nice warm shell under the cloud cover. It was a little cooler as we headed out but by no means cold, it was finally time to visit the volcano. We’ve been told how awesome it is up here and was one of the main reason for our visit to this particular island over all the others.
The rain is strange here it’s nice because it doesn’t pelt down and hit you in the face like back in the UK but it sure does seem to start and stop a lot. With that said the rain does seem to make the frogs extra chirpy at night. The drive to the volcano from our side of the island was long, combined with the fact that the speed limits are very low here (average 40mph), and the roads are so windy with constant elevation changes so took around 2 and a half hours to arrive here. We are in a pattern of waking up early with the beautiful sunrise and birdsong, which helps us to do these long journeys and arrive in plenty of time.
The Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park is celebrating the centennial year of National parks, it’s an exciting time to be in the US. It’s wonderful to see the celebrations at each Park for the protection and preservation of many important landscapes.
Once arriving at the park there is plenty to see, we first headed to the Jagger museum. This museum holds a lot of information on all the different types of volcanos from around the country and the world and the rocks and lava that each produces. It was interesting to browse around and find out about this amazing landscape feature. After finding out all we could we headed out to view the volcano. The big island of Hawaii is home to two active volcanoes, the Mauna Loa volcano that we’ve come to see is actively spewing out fresh lava everyday.
It’s not everyday that you get to see something like this, it will definitely be an exceptional memory of our trip! Our adventures didn’t end here and we proceeded to drive along the aptly named crafter rim drive as far as we could, before road closures directed us around the rest of the volcano. There’s plenty to see, it’s an interesting drive along all the old lava flow sites it could be considered a bleak landscape as it’s black all along from the hardened lava, but plenty of shrubbery grows out here rising up through the thick black rock, emphasising how resilient nature really is.
Not done with this wondrous landscape yet we continued driving stopping to see more, we made it to a clearing where we went on a minor hike viewing plants native to Hawaii, many are only found here on the island. The path led us to whats known as the Thurston lava tube (Nãhuku), the is a cave that was carved out in the rock years ago by the hot flowing lava! Weird to think that here we are today walking through it!
We also had the opportunity to view some steam vents from the volcano, which spew out sulphur, producing a rather unpleasant rotten egg smell! After a pleasant journey back to the ranch for our last night on this beautiful island Hawaii had one last treat, a farewell for us, a particularly spectacular sunset.
