Bricole, everyone’s favorite celebrity couple, have seen some volcanoes in their day. In fact, less than a year ago, we were standing just across a narrow valley of lava from a major eruption in Iceland. Perhaps the Big Island’s most unique attraction is Volcanoes National Park. None of the other islands in the chain have any active volcanoes and the Big Island has produced one of the most consistent eruptions anywhere in the world.
During previous visits, I recall shockingly cold weather within the park, which is a few thousand feet above sea level. It was also rather overcast and often voggy (volcanic fog). This day yielded rather different results on the weather front. There were topographical features that I previously had no idea that they existed because of the general reduced visibility in this area of the island.
We first walked amongst some sulphuric steam vents. We saw a sign that indicated that people have gone off the trail and fallen through the thin crust into boiling sulphuric pools. We (Bricole) are smart enough to not go off the path, but I can’t say the same for some others.
After our brief walk around the steam vents, we drove to the Kilauea Overlook to catch a glimpse into Halema’uma’u crater. As of right now this is the only place where one could hypothetically see active lava in the park. According to the National Park website, little ribbons of lava can be seen, but it was quite a distance away. We could see some steam coming off the crater floor and from its walls, but the bright sun and the smokiness were likely obscuring any chance of seeing the lava prominently. Perhaps at dusk, the lava is more visible, but since Bricole have already had such amazing volcano viewings over the past few years, it didn’t seem worth it to make the drive all the way back at night.
From there we drove down to the bottom of Chain of Craters Road. This is where it was possible, in the past, to see some lava coming down the hillside and dumping into the ocean. That vent has since dried up and there is no more lava viewing. Unfortunately, there’s also not much else. I recall an older lava flow had covered the road, but also preserved many of the road signs which made for unique photo ops.
Unfortunately, for reasons that defy logic, the park decided to raze this section of the lava flow and make a dirt road that would in theory access the location of the old lava flow. So rather than divert the road slightly to preserve this interesting part of the park, they removed everything without any logical explanation. Sadly for us, we didn’t make this discovery until we drove 45 minutes to get there. This is evidently a recent change, but not one that has been well-documented.
The only consolation was a sea arch. But as far as sea arches go, it was mediocre at best, and not worth a 45 minute drive (one-way) at least. Whilst looking through some old photos, however, I did also discover that what were itty bitty palm trees in my previous visit have since grown into a nice oasis in the middle of a lava field. But again … definitely not worth a 45 minute drive.
After climbing all the way back up toward the Visitor’s Center, we drove back to Hilo. I picked up another pair of Locals at a supermarket, so our trip to the Volcano wasn’t entirely in vain.
Most other establishments are closed on Sunday, so lunch was a bit lackluster and involved some leftover pizza, ritz crackers, danish, and brownie bites from Big Island Candies. Is it keto? Vegan? Paleo? Sure, and probably just as healthy.
We ventured out again in the afternoon. Google said all the beaches down the coast were crowded once more, so we elected to drive the opposite direction and see what we would encounter. Our first effort was foiled by a closed road, so we veered off toward Akaka Falls instead.
It was a relatively short loop trail to see the falls. It was fairly crowded with other tourists — families with small children, people limping along with cast boots, out-of-shape Texans wearing Buc-ee’s attire, and Bricole rounded out the visitors. After giving the falls an acceptable amount of viewing time, we completed our circuit and returned to the car.
We took a scenic drive for part of the way back toward Hilo, which also doubled as part of the course for the 2006 Big Island International Marathon in case you were curious. Luckily it wasn’t flooded, as was the case when I ran it more than 15 years ago. We continued on to Hilo after making a brief detour toward 7-Eleven which included its own detour to Rainbow Falls.
It was an easy pull off. We were in and out in a matter of minutes …or maybe a minute. Either way, we soon found ourselves at 7-Eleven acquiring Japanese teas and a teriyaki chicken manapua, which is sort of like a steam bun or type of Dim Sum with meat in it. We returned to the hotel to regroup and eat the manapua.
Dinner proved to be a bit of a challenge. Very little is open on Sundays. As a result, the few things that are open were absolutely inundated with people. Rather than wait for 45min to an hour, we made a takeout order from a place downtown called Jackie Reys, which would be ready in 20. During that 20 minutes, we went to 7-Eleven to get some Kona beers. I do believe we have possibly been to every 7-Eleven in the Hilo area. I almost bought myself a mask that had a musubi on it. It was very tempting, but it was a not great quality cloth one, so I decided against it. We also made a quick stop at Ken’s House of Pancakes. There was limited parking as it too was filled with people, so Nicole jumped out to make an inquiry on my behalf. Last time we were there, I tried to order a t-shirt, but they said they were out of mediums and to check the next day. We were skeptical that new ones would show up, but Nicole emerged from Ken’s with a highly sought after medium t-shirt. What. A. Find.
We then picked up our burgers from downtown and ate our dinner outside the pool area of our hotel which was fairly calm until 20 children showed up and ruined the vibe. We relocated to a sort of second lobby in the hotel to unwind from the day and make tentative plans on how to get back to Kona tomorrow before our flight in the afternoon. Aloha for now.
passports & pepto bismol 