(Only more so.) Just finished fixing the photos for the last 3 days. I had to do the helicopter ones 3 times, as the app was misbehaving so badly.
Now to do today!
Tag Archives: big island
Frustration
My dad pointed out that there were no photos for the last few posts. They were there at one point… I’ll be adding them back in today. You can start with the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park post, just updated that one now.
Hilo
Today was a disappointing day until about 3:30 this afternoon.
It started with our helicopter tour being pushed back to the afternoon. Which meant finding something to do for the morning. We drove around to find some waterfalls.
Soooo… no waterfall. Rainbow Falls is apparently pretty nice after it’s been raining, but no rain so no water and no fall. We head back.
In our first night in Volcano I had scraped the front bumper “a bit”… We had discussed getting it repainted in Hilo since letting the rental company deal with it is invariably a bad idea. I looked up a place, called them and set up a meeting to survey the damage. It’s more money, and we’re on vacation and it’s time and… bleh.
Back to the hotel, food and off to the airport. Seconds upon reaching the airport, the lady tells us that we won’t get the “preferred seats” we had paid for.
After some concern, it turns out that we might not get the seats, depending on weight, which is fair, but it worked out well.
No doors, no glass between us and the world. Awesome. I had my 100-300mm lens on. Which was terrible for taking “expansive” photography, but great for trying to get some closer ups.
The flight was simply amazing, done with Paradise Helicopters. Miranda, again, has some great photos.
We left and dropped the car off. If you’re ever in Hilo and need some auto body work done, this evening I can highly recommend Aftermath Painting. A really friendly guy, quoted me a decent price and adjusted to my vacation schedule. On top of that, he dropped us off at our hotel. I hope his work is as good!
Feeling a hell of a lot better about the day, we met up with a friend of Miranda’s who randomly happened to be in Hilo as well! A few drinks later and we’re back at the hotel.
Watching “Bar Rescue”. Good show. Tomorrow we pick up the car and head north to Waipio valley.
Night!
Heading to Hilo
We started the day by deciding to visit a winery in Volcano. As Miranda texted that day – ” I’m at a winery by 11 am, it’s a pretty good day.”
We had an 8 wine tasting and bought a couple bottles of wine and the ladies serving were fun and obviously loved their job. They had this honey/tea infusion wine that I was certain I was going to love… but it needed milk. 😛
Went for a drive for the rest of the afternoon. Drove down to the County labs viewing spot only to find that it didn’t open until 3. Drove up the coast and took a few photos of some intense waves.
Found a farmer’s market just outside of Pahoa and wandered around. Lots of neat things to see, and some great eats. Lots of hippies.
More driving. Our guidebook claims that Sunday isn’t a great day to visit these beaches, as the locals aren’t as friendly, so we just drove by with the occasional stop.
The County lava viewing area opened and we went for another short hike.
The lava in this area flowed through in 1990 and covered a community called Kalapana. You can still see houses standing, and we’re told that people still live here. Hard to imagine. As Miranda said ” oh yeah, that’s where Suzies house used to be”… Rough.
The guards here wouldn’t let us walk past a certain point, which was to far away to see much of anything. As we arrived we saw a couple walking towards us from outside the viewing area. When we asked about that, the guard said that these people had now received a $5,000 fine per person. Don’t screw with the County.
Drove to Hilo. Here’s our hotel. No kitchen is weird. And it turns out that the airport is… Right there. And crying babies in the room over.
Today we have a helicopter tour of a volcano. Hopefully we see some lava…
Writing this at breakfast, so now I’m caught up again!
Hawaii Volcanoes National Park
This was an awesome day!
First, another photo of the residential areas of Volcano that we were staying in. It’s like someone built a town in the middle of a jungle and cut it all away for roads, as close as possible.
After putting our laundry in the dryer we drove over to the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park to check out the visitor center and see our first real stop – the Halemu’amu’u Crater, which has been erupting for a few years now. It’s a bit of a smoking crater next to the Jagger Museum, and pretty cool looking off in the distance.
We picked up the laundry and went back to the park. Our first stop was supposed to be the Thurston Lava Tube, but we saw some people wandering through a crater on our way there and decided to do that hike instead. It was about a 4 mile (it’s all in miles…) hike, taking us about 2 hours. You start with a switchback down through a jungle.
And continue until you hit the crater floor, where you hike across the crater. This is the Kileaua Iki hike, apparently a moderate to challenging hike, possibly because of some heavy uphill and some uneven volcanic rock.
That was a long and exhausting hike, from two folks who don’t hike that much. We stopped at the air conditioned car for a bit and had some food. Then drove to the Thurston Lava Tube, 5 minutes down the road. This place is pretty badass. Apparently created when the top of the lava cools faster than the flowing bit, which eventually creates a tube when the lava stops flowing.
After the tube, we went to another shorter hike up to Pu’u Huluhulu. A 30-40 minute hike through some volcanic rock up to a steeper green and switchbacked hill. At the top of Pu’u we were treated to a pretty nice view of many of the surrounding craters. (for some reason I don’t have a photo from there…). While at the top we spoke with a gentleman who was pointing at a nearby smoking area and noted that it was probably only a half hour out from where we were. At the bottom of the grassy area, Miranda and I decided to do the hike. It was a little uphill, but gently sloping and easy to follow out and back.
Once at the top, we were treated to an amazing view. I’m hoping to find some panorama software to stitch these photos together when I get home. Apparently 500 feet across and 400 feet deep, the Mauna Ulu crater is an amazing site. Also surrounded by tons of smoking vents, which were warm and wet when you put your hand near them.
A longer walk back down than we had expected, but well worth it.
We went home and had some food and showered from our hikes. We gathered our photography items and bundled up in jackets, long pants and shoes and headed back to the park for some photos.
It turns out that Halemu’amu’u is super pretty at night. And you can see the stars with no troubles, since there is no light pollution around. Miranda got some even better photos today, hopefully I’ll be able to share them. 🙂