08May2015 - Day 7, Big Island, Waterfalls and Volcanoes

Today we drove the entire island loop road.  We departed about 8AM and met up with Sue and Roger for the first half of the day.  We drove it Northerly since we had not seen this part of the island in the daylight and wanted to see some of the water falls on the North coast.

Our first water fall stop was Akaka Falls, this is 422 ft, and it is beautiful, complete with rainbow at its base.

Akaka Falls




















From there we continued our loop onto the Rainbow Falls in Hilo.  Although the falls themselves are not that impressive, you can take a very short hike up to the head of the falls which gives a unique perspective.

The falls are not as high, about 80 feet, and we did not see a rainbow here, most likely due to the overcast, but they are pretty.

On the trail to the head of the falls you come by about the biggest banyan tree I have ever seen (I think it is a Banyan?). It looks like something from one of J. R. R Tolkien's books/movies. The picture does not do it justice.

The head of Rainbow Falls.

After the falls we drove into Hilo to find lunch. We settled on the Pesto Cafe and it was an excellent choice.  At the cafe, Nurse Sue performed triage on my Humu bite and administered an oral pain killer.

After lunch we parted ways with the Legendres. They were headed for the Saddle Road to see the observatory and we headed south for Volcano National Park.

Volcano National Park is amazing.  The smoking crater in the daylight is cool, but what is really surreal is the landscape. Vast areas around the volcanoes makes you feel as if you landed on another planet, like Mars, it is amazing. The steam vents around the crater exhaust hot steam that is much hotter than I anticipated, giving you some indication of how much heat is below.

 We viewed the smoking Kilauea Caldera, toured the visitor center, went through a lava tube and then decided to take the Chain of Craters Road, which runs down to the ocean, because we wanted to hang around until dark to see Kilauea at night.

The lava tube.

The trip down the Chain of Craters road is well worth the 40 mile round trip.  This is where you see the vast lava fields and eventually where the lava overtook the road (in 1986), which now dead ends in the lava field.

In addition the lava fields, at the end of the road there is the Holei Sea Arch. The arch and the coast in general, where the waves crash, is worth seeing.










The finale for the evening was viewing the the Kilauea Caldera at night. The molten lava in the caldera lights up the steam cloud red and you can see some of the lava jumping into the cloud, a very different view than daytime.

Unfortunately the fun part of our trip is done and we will now travel back to the northeast.  We have heard the weather is improving, we are counting on it...we will be home on Saturday.   All and all it has been a great trip that we will remember for a long time.