Mount Kilauea

Remember, I’m writing this as if I had written it last night, just to keep the blog days in order.

One of the main reasons I wanted to come to the Big Island of Hawaii is to see the Kilauea volcano. It’s a very active volcano and keeps spewing lava, although not necessarily from the same place all the time. It’s always moving.

This is the original Kilauea cauldron and crater. There is still steam coming from the crater and although the lava lake inside has descended a great deal because of more recent eruptions, it is still there.

Because of this steam, but mainly the sulphur dioxide (if I have that right) mixed with it, some roads are closed around the whole site. This means we couldn't get to several of the places we wanted to go.

This is one of the steam vents you can walk up to...just coming out of the earth.

And this is at the side of the road where lava flowed in July of 1974. The land is still pretty desolate, but plants are starting to grow on it.

This is called the Thurston Lava Tube where we walked through a 500-foot section. Lava did flow through here at one time.

Unfortunately, due to the most recent eruption at Pu’u ‘O’o, lava stopped flowing over top, so now you can’t see it! Aaaagghh. That’s one thing I really did want to see. It could break through the surface and be on top again at any time, but not while we’re here. That’s the scary part, you just don’t know where it’s going to flow, and even when it was flowing on top in spots, it was also still flowing underneath the surface, which meant the surface was hot to walk on.

Leaving the volcano area, we drove over to Hilo and the 4-mile scenic drive just north of Hilo. A beautiful spot along the east coast of Hawaii. What makes the east coast so beautiful is the lush tropical foliage due to the amount of rain it gets. And of course, the ocean has it’s spot in the beauty.

We finished the evening back at our Ferntree Hideaway with some snacks, and brown pop brewed in Hilo we picked up at the store.