The Big Island pt. II - Volcano

On to the next adventure! Volcano! The days that we journeyed to different housing locations were the most activity intense as we were passing through places we would not be able to go back to. After our final incline on the RFH, we made our way south to Hilo and the town of Volcano, HI just outside Volcano National park. Our first stop on the way was the Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden.
[Dad comments in brackets]

The plants there are not all native, but once in Hawaii, all these tropical wonders thrive.

Man, I don't remember what this one was called. That one on the left is Matt, and the one in the middle is Brock.

This one was called the "bat"... something. Another highly useful comment.

The park is also next to a public access trail that goes along the coast. The garden trail opened up to the view at a few look outs... paradise.

Brock just sometimes request that we take a photo sometimes of random sites.
[This was daddy's favorite orchids. Doesn't show well, but they were light green with pink spots. Brock keeps stealing the show.]

A pineapple! Which are also not native to Hawaii! 

Who knew the ginger flower was so amazing.

 

  Ready for rain.

[cute guy being cute]

Oh my this smoothie place. Matt might elaborate, but see those trees back there? Our fruit was on it not too long ago! Fresh from the orchard with frozen bananas instead of ice to bring on the smooth.
[Avocado trees pictured. Bananas and mangoes were also very plentiful. They pretty much grew everything except the berries here.]

One of many lizards encountered in various locations. The green ones are not local we learned, but the little brown ones are.

[this amazing trifecta is from Rainbow Falls. We arrived too late in the day to see rainbows, but we still got to stare into the sun for selfies.]

Just another amazing banyan tree. Rainbow falls was lovely, but this wooded area around the falls was really the highlight. All of this nature in downtown Hilo.

After our full day of driving adventures, we head up for our 6pm reso at Volcano House, the restaurant and inn on the face of the mountain.

See the red gleam! So funny, I had seen in addition, many red sparks... turns out they were just the back headlights of vehicles driving away from the park. Anyhow, this is the real thing above, a view of the Halema'uma'u crater of the Kilauea overlook. Yes, Kilauea, that just blew up. Not from that exact hole, but wow, we missed it by a week. We were actually disappointed at first, now we are quite happy we got out when we did. Considering how long it took us to get through security without a local crisis (maybe more on that later).

I do appear to be gritting my teeth. It was quite chilly up there on the mountain.

The view from further down, with active bubbling lava. Apparently, one doesn't generally see the actual lava, just lots of steam, but because it was ready to blow, we had a treat! You really did need binoculars though, and we were very happy our tree house host lent us his.
[This gives you a good idea of what the view looked like with the naked eye]

Matt, did you take this pic through the binoculars? Any how, Matt could have stayed out there all night to watch it gurgle, but the boy wore shorts and was actively saying he was cold. That is a lot coming from this little guy who generally is content to wear shorts in 50 degrees.
[This is just a cropped version of the above shot. The view with binoculars was this big, but obviously non-pixelated. I could've stared endlessly; truly mesmerizing. The lava in this crater wasn't high enough to be visible the week before we arrived, so it was a truly special sight. The day we left Hawai'i, this crater overflowed. Once the eruptions started in Pahoa, this crater drained very low, and the past few days it's started spewing ash thousands of feet into the air. Our timing was pretty darn lucky.]

The view from our bed at the tree house we stayed in Volcano the next morning. The tree house was just dreamy and Brock got to sleep in his own loft that had a skylight to look at stars and lots of lizards. And mosquitoes hungering at the juicy boy so close.

 [view to the living room from bed. kitchen is underfoot]

[view to Brock's lofted bed from ours]

[my only shot of the path to volcano house and surrounding jungle. Brock must have been in vibrate mode.]

We set out on a hike around and ON Kilauea'iki crater, about 3.5 miles round trip, just about the limit of Brock's young stamina.

Fern forest that was adorned with copious prehistoric specimens.

[here's a view from the ridge above the caldera]

The real jewel was the 1 mile section directly across the somewhat dormant crater (there is real lava about 250 feet down under hardened lava rock.

[a few beauties amongst the desolation]

[If you look very closely along the ridge line on the left of this picture, you may notice a few white pixels among the green. That's the parking lot where we started this hike! It was all jungle ridge to get here. Now it's a lava hike back.]

[about a third of the way across the caldera, the lava changes from rough spiky a'a to these very smooth flat sheets. It was like post-apocalyptic parking lot surrounded by jungle.]

[the park had set up these make-shift rock pyramids as trail markers. If you look closely, you can see more of them behind us. Brock discovered that if you picked up handfuls of lava pebbles and dropped them on these pyramids, it made beautiful wind-chime-like tones. Our little experimenter discovered a gem that I doubt many have found. Way to go Brock!]

There are steam vents in many of the crevices leading to, as I mentioned, the lava below. These steam vents provide an ideal place for the Ohia tree. This tree is often the first sign of life after lava decimation. It also has beautiful Hawaiian folk lore wrapped around it exemplifying, yet again, the wrath of the Goddess Pele. 

[For anyone wondering where the steam comes from: rain. All the rock we walked on is very porous. There is molten lava a few hundred feet down. Every time it rains, some water seeps down to the lava level, and gets sent right back up as steam. These vets were warm and moist, not hot at all.]

Someone is pooped. Matt. Ha. Brock too. Brock got a daddy shoulder ride all the way back up. Not too far, but quite uphill.
[ugh]

After a nap, we set off down the Chain of Craters road. It follows the path of lava flows from the last century down to the sea. And it is rainbow mecca after a pour. And wind mecca, holy moly do trees and topography make a difference in air flow.

Yes, rainbow-at-my-back-sun-in-my-eyes strikes again.

This smooth stuff is pahoehoe, very flow-y and quite nice to walk on. All that other jagged monstrous stuff is a'a... as in ah! ah! my toes! Most of the island is covered in a'a.

wind. sun. ahhhhhh.

Double rainbow yo!

 [so...bright...]

[lemme get you in my phone shadow]

["ah geez dad, give up already"]

The sea arch, and the end of the road, where the lava once took to the waves.

[After seeing the coast, we drove back up the mountain to visit the tree molds. These deep stone holes were formed when lava flowed around wet trees.The wet live trees lasted just long enough to cool and solidify the lava around them before bursting into flames and leaving these molds. You can see every crevice in the old bark. Pretty cool stuff.]

 [Of course, this being America, the bottom of each mold was filled with soda cans. Sad. Thankfully my camera couldn't see that far.]

 [The next day we drove to the east coast to go snorkeling in some tide pools in a nice residential area. Here's Brock being silly in the neighborhood parking lot.]

[Geared up and ready to snorkel!]

[This area was lots and lots of small pools sheltered from the waves of the open ocean. Brock had been practicing his snorkel skills in the bathtub and a few Chicago-area pools, but this was his first real snorkel experience with animals and open water. We could not have picked a worse first place to snorkel. All of the rock that forms and separates the pools is a'a, meaning super duper sharp. They were also really shallow. For extra fun, there were occasionally very strong currents from pool to pool. This led to lots of scrapes and slips and crying. Brock was a real trooper through the whole experience, and was rewarded with sights of cool fish, eels, sea cucumbers of multiple colors, and some hermit crabs. We wondered if we'd ever get him back in a mask again though.]

[Our next stop was a place called the Champagne Pools. It's a sheltered bay on the east coast that is also fed by subterranean volcanic fresh-water springs. The water is brackish and there are vents all over dumping nice warm fresh water. Find a vent, and it's like a nice warm bath. To get there, you need to drive along the coast on this lava road. 4x4 required. It was a pretty fun adventure.] Above is "the road" to get there.

[obligatory Yukon commercial shot. This was the "parking lot" for the Champagne Pools. It was not crowded.]

[And we're in the water! Bay all around me, open ocean behind, i'm seeing how well this water-proof phone case functions.]

 [Mommy gives it two thumbs up. It took us quite a while to get Brock into his snorkel after our morning at the tide pools. He really just wanted to swim around and splash, which we did for quite some time. Eventually he gained interest in checking out the fish, and he was delighted by what an easier location this turned out to be.]

[surface brock from below...]

[I also feel like mentioning for those interested (and my future memory) that this day trip was when we drove over the area that is currently erupting right now. We stopped for lunch in Pahoa and many of the pictures you see of lava flowing over roads are the road we took to the tide pools and champagne pool. This day would've been impossible less than a week later.]

[All that swimming really builds up an appetite. Unfortunately, there is no fresh meat or fish sold in any grocery store in Volcano. Brock delighted in following local tradition and getting his meat straight from the can.]

Final quick stop along the way was the true black sand beach, Punalu'u. It gains high marks in the travel books, with declaration of good swimming, high turtle nesting density and hikes. This was by far my least favorite beach. The black grains were course and painful to bare feet. I suppose if you could swim without ever touching sand that might have been ok. There were several turtles hanging out on the beach which was cool. But you had to walk across the sand of pain to see them. I know I am complaining about paradise, but there you have it. Should have named it Poo-Pooalu'lu.

[Here Brock poses with the biggest of this beach's turtles. When they get tired of swimming, they come rest here and have gotten to be well-known by locals.]

[This group of turtles chose a less human-accessible resting spot. Brock was unimpressed.]

And there you have it, Volcano Hawaii. It was a truly worthy followup to the valley. A note to anyone looking for a total life change: open a restaurant in Volcano. We have long stories about waits for tables at the few places to eat (and even less options Sunday-Tuesday) and the prices and the insanity people put up with to eat. There are also no grocery stores, as Matt said, that go beyond a gas station stop. And there are a lot of very willing tourists. Just a thought. Next up, we hit the beach! and there are many adventures along the way...