Up at the crack of dawn, we packed up our latest very desirable home away from home, and checked out of the Sheraton Kona Resort.
The skies seemed somewhat cloudy, however as we drove throughout the island, the weather seemed to change. At one ocean lookout not far from our final destination of Volcanoes National Park, we even had a beautiful cloudless blue sky. As we got closer to the park, the skies clouded up again. We were told that this is the norm on that side of the island.
We watched a short video, with not to be believed live footage of the Kileaua Volcano eruption of 1959, which basically destroyed miles and miles of land and property, and created an enormous lava lake swallowing up all the forest and trees in its relentless path of fiery destruction. Armed with ponchos, and unfearful of potential rain, we set off to acquaint ourselves with this deadly volcano.
First on the itinerary were the sulfur banks. The ground looked mineralized from the sulfur exposure and the whole area reeked of it. Fascinating how one volcano can basically change an entire ecosystem. The Steam Vents were next, picture hot steam hissing out of the ground, like a steam room. Unfortunately, smart me climbed up a rail to see a vent closer up, and came down hard on a rock, which twisted my ankle. I thought it was ok, and continued on to the Kileaua Iki hike.
We were told that Allison, the park ranger, is giving a tour and planned to meet up with her at 1o'clock, however after driving aimlessly and ranger was nowhere to be seen, we just continued on to the hike.
The Kileaua Iki hike is a 4 mile, roundtrip hike down the mountain, thru the lava lake crater, and back up the other side of the parking lot.
The hike down was pretty standard as hiking goes, however, upon arriving at the crater we were amazed by the vast size of its breadth. The dried lava terrain was black and rocky, and still warm to the touch. The entire lake of lava took 38 years to cool. Despite this, the ground is still warm and trapped rainwater still steams up from the inner core of the lake. The park has placed rock tower formations to strongly encourage visitors to stay on a specific path through the crater floor. We stopped for delicious Brooklyn style tuna sandwiches and enjoyed a gourmet lunch on the floor of the crater.
For some strange reason, after lunch my ankle remembered that it was twisted a couple hours before and started to really hurt. This made the trek back up the Jurassic Park looking mountain much longer and harder. Despite the throbbing I knew that this is just a small glitch, and pushed along. After reaching the top of Mount Everest, according to my injured ankle, I needed to see the lava tubes. I mean, even though I could barely limp anymore, when will I have another opportunity to see a lava tube?! The tubes are caves of sort which lava flowed through. They look similar to stalagtite tunnels.
At this point, walking was too painful, so we went to the visitor center to get some ice and an ace bandage. That and some Tylenol helped the pain, and we continued up to the Jagger Museum situated across from the active Kileaua volcano. The museum was interesting, showed current seismigraph activity of the local volcanoes on the islands. There were legends and paintings of the volcano goddess, Pele.
Sunset was shrouded in clouds, but the current eruption was not. The Kileaua volcano is currently a steaming frothing lava lake, about 500 feet wide, 100-200 feet deep. The lava cannot be seen from up close, as the land is outside of park borders, and the owners aren't keen on visitors trespassing all over their property. After dark, the reflection of the pool is quite beautiful, and the orange cloud emanating from the scalding hot lava can be seen very clearly. It's an amazing sight, really not to be missed.
When the sky completely darkened, we were treated to an unbelievable light show, the likes which I've never seen before. The stars were incredible. Lying down on the ground we were able to see many constellations, twinkling and clear.
The drive from the park to our hotel in Hona, was about 45 mins. Hona seemed like a sleepy town, and the hotel was mediocre at best. Our room did have an ocean view, but we arrived after dark, so didn't really see much of it at all.
I'm convinced the hotel is haunted, the wind blows throughout the corridors and generates whistling noises. On my search for ice, I discovered a really creepy deserted hallway full of furniture and went running back to the room all goosebumped. Strangely, we were the only whites there, all we saw were Asians.
Knowing our flight to Maui was at 8am, we fell into bed pretty quickly. All in all, a full exploratory day :)
I've fallen in love with the Big Island, sad to leave. Waiting to see what Maui has to offer.
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