Hawai’i or Big Island is the youngest and biggest of the Hawaiian Islands and famed for its active volcanos, so our first visit was to the Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park for a day. On the way, we stopped off at Punalu’u Black Sand Beach – very aptly named as the sand is indeed black.
It’s a favourite for the Hawaiian Green turtles who often bask on this beach, and along with rarer Hawksbill turtles may lay eggs here, too. We spotted 2 turtles in the sea but thanks to Hurricane Dora (a fish hurricane, one that necer makes land) some 400 miles off the coast, the waves were incredibly fierce (as was the wind) and they struggled to get to the beach.
We drove through vast areas of black lava to the park and then drove along the Kilauea Crater Rim drive. It’s hard to describe the vastness of the crater and how much it sank after the last big eruption in 2018. There are no eruptions at present, although there was one in June this year, and a new cone has formed in the crater from that.
We also saw the Kilauea Iki Crater, which you can walk across. This erupted in 1959 and continued for over 30 days. Columns of lava spouted higher than the empire state building during this time and eventually formed a new mountain.
Then, we had a short walk through the Thurston lava tube to finish the trip.
You can hike around the park (subject to conditions of course), and there is also another drive – chain of craters – but we didn’t have enough time for this.
Nature is pretty awesome, and this area is proof of that indeed. Our photos really don’t do it justice.
Thursday we visited two different cultural sites here in Hawai’i. Firstly St Benedicts Catholic Church, aka The Painted Church. It was built in 1899 and painted by Belgian Father John Velghe with no artistry training. It is quite something inside. It is a practising Church and whilst many Catholic churches preach fire and brimstone depicting hell – this is not the case in Hawaii as they already have their own “god of fire” in Pele and the volcanos! There is a small cemetery here with beautiful gardens. All graves are above ground due to the difficulty in digging through lava!
Then we visited Pu’uhonua o Honaunau – a temple of great powers. However, beyond the great wall that surrounds the Royal Grounds is a place of refuge. This is where those who broke the kapu or sacred laws and beliefs could seek refuge if they could elude their pursuers by foot or swimming through the reefs. In wartime, this area was also a sanctuary for the elderly and children.
We saw lots of yellow tang fish in the clear sea waters around this beautiful site.
Friday – rain stopped play (well nearly!). It was the first rain we’ve seen properly since April!!!
The day started well and we headed off down Saddle Road, which runs through the middle of the island between the two huge volcanos – Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa. Whilst not terribly photogenic it does make you feel very small and humbled by these amazing mountains. We took the side trip up 9200ft to Mauna Kea Visitor centre, which, although small, has an interesting display about the observatories and telescopes on the summit. You can hike there (the air is 40% thinner so you need to be wary of altitude sickness) or drive in a 4WD but the top is 13776ft, can be snowy and cold but is also considered a sacred area. The visitor centre gets busy at sunset as it’s a good viewing spot.
Then we headed towards Hilo and into pouring rain! The plan had been to visit the Botanical Gardens and Akaka Falls but there was no point. We did manage a break in the rain to quickly view the huge 6 mile long Waipi’o Valley, also known as the Valley of the Kings – communities used to farm taro here but most left after the 1946 tsunami.
Then on back to Kona to sample the local Ola beer and watch a stunning sunset after all that rain!
Next we ventured to the North of the island to the tiny town of Hawi, once a busy sugar town. We were amazed that you can see the island of Maui from this coastline.
We travelled up Highway 250, the Kohala Mountain Road, with amazing views back across the island. Here, it is very pastural land with ranches and cattle everywhere. We passed the Parker Ranch/ Camp Tawara memorial for the 2nd and 5th marine division, who returned here to recuperate and retrain during the second world war.
After a coffee and cake stop we ventured back on the coast road and stopped off at the Kawaihae harbour for a paddle – this was formed by a 120 ton aluminium ammonium nitrate explosion (under Project Plowshare, to normalise the “friendly atom”! This explosion creates something close to an atomic boom!). It created the harbour but did no damage to nearby Heiau (temples).
We then visited Pu’ukohola Heiau – a historic temple to the war God Ku and where King Kamehameha established his kingdom. There were some very interesting videos here of the hawaiian culture and history which tied in all the other sites we’d seen throughout the week. Then back through varying landscapes of old lava flows (cinders and smooth) to our AirBnB.
But before we left the island, we had to visit our two favourite local breweries, here in Kona!! Kona Brewing and Ola Brewing.
We’ve enjoyed Hawai’i. You definitely need a car to get around as the buses are not terribly reliable and the distances, whilst not huge, take a while to get around due to road conditions and speed limits. A very chilled island.