Dolphin Bay Hotel provide a communal breakfast of sticky doughnuts, coffee and fruit besides the hotel office from 05:30. Also besides the office is our bedroom which meant that we were wide awake from the chatter outside our door well before our 08:30 alarm.
We made the most of our comfortable accommodation and gradually prepared for the day. First we had to write our journals from the last day whilst enjoying the doughnuts.
I had a quick wander around the garden before Ian drove us out of Hilo into the district of Puna.
Down the Highway 11 we joined the 130 at Keaau and bypassed Pahoa to join the 132, shortly after which we found the Lava Treet State Park, a two hundred year old lava forest. When Kilauea erupted in 1790 an ohia rainforest was engulfed in lava and when the trees eventually succumbed to the heat and burned away lava molds were left behind. There were fewer of these great structures than I had anticipated there being, but that they were amongst another live forest made a nice, if dangerous, setting for the forest.
Our journey continued eastbound through papaya groves but on passing what used to be the town of Kapoho before it was engulfed in a 1960 lava flow, we found a gravel road leading to the eastern cape of the state of Hawaii and the sight of a spared Kumukahi lighthouse. We had to divert south onto Highway 137 so as not to invalidate our car rental agreement.
The drive down Highway 137 was very pleasant. It was a nice bright day south of Pahoa and the road, although very close to the water level on the seeward side, was lined with green trees and rainforest. We had a momentary glare at some would be surfers at Isaac Hale Beach Park and watched the surf crashing ashore. At MacKenzie State Recreation Area we were faced with 40 foot cliffs and pounding surf. It was a powerful scene. A few yards in from the cliffs, walking on a very soft bed of pine needles, we came across a giant collapsed lava tube. Very conscious of our steps, we carefully studied it before moving away from it and travelled along its predicted path to the ocean. Sure enough we had found its direction. Two more big holes in the ground were seen and we also found its terminal point as it had reached the end of the land and met the ocean. With trepidation, we found our footings and returned to the car to continue our tour of the district of Puna, which took us, quite literally, to the end of the road and Verna's Drive In.
Formerly the most famous black sand beach in Hawaii, Kaimu Beach was buried under the 1990 Kilauea eruption which also destroyed the village of Kalapana. Despite our dangerous search for some clues of an old existence we couldn't find a single one, just miles and miles of hardened, yet fragile, lava. I did, however, discover a very beautiful flower head of white and purple colouration. I haven't seen it anywhere else in Hawaii. We wandered across the lava to the sea to see the new black sand beach in the making and found that tourism is already creeping back and making a stance. People have been planting coconuts near the shoreline for a future tourism attraction. It's a peculiar sight having young coconut plants where the waves break.
Back on Highway 130 we paused at the side of the road just outside if Pahoa and watched some steam rising from vents, in the rain, and then we drove back to Hawaii Volcanoes National Park to face low cloud and lots of pondering whether or not to pitch our tent in the rain. When the rain ceased and we could distinguish break in the cloud we decided to erect the tent and as we did so the rain returned to Kulanaokuaiki, which made us smile if nothing else! On our way out of Hilina Pali road we saw a feral pig which scarpered into the bushes out of sight so Ian couldn't film him!
By 18:30 we were back at the eruption site making progress across the recent lava flows to the red lava. It was another spectacular night viewing and we also had good views over towards the Pu'u O'o Vent and later on towards the ocean entry point. Both were glowing a beautiful red as the night wore on. I reeled off a couple of rolls of film, having gotten some good series shots, and we sat down to watch and enjoy the show, while many school children appeared at the scene and were found to be very excitable by what they saw. We returned to the soggy campsite at 21:30 and climbed into our tent which managed to keep dry inside. We had decided not to drive into Hilo to get some dinner in case we couldn't get fuel to get back again, so we entered our sleeping bags and soon fell asleep.
Cockroaches are found at the lava fields, I have noticed, especially after dusk. They get everywhere!
We had driven 141 miles today.
Copyright 2003 Helen Fuller. All rights reserved.