Denise's Hawaii - Day 12-13 Hilo to Kailua Kona

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Yesterday was another driving day. We travelled up the way up the windward coast to the end of the road. Then turned around and came back. You'd be surprised how often you have to do that on the Big Island! Between valleys, volcanoes and ocean, there's a lot of dead ends. But there's always enough on the route to make it worthwhile.

We enjoyed numerous valleys, waterfalls, a couple of short treks and some shopping in Hilo. We enjoyed getting off the highway a couple times for beautiful detours through forests where the trees grow right over the road and block out the sun. Gorgeous!

At the end of the road was an overlook with an amazing view of sea cliffs, a lush valley

We packed a lunch and took off around 10. It was a nice, easy day, and no new sunburns.

Today we packed up and moved from the place we were staying in the Kapoho area to Keahou outside Kailua-Kona. So the morning got off to a late start while we packed up, cleaned up, fed the fish in the pond, and did double, triple and quadruple checks to make sure we hadn't left anything behind!

We were originally going to drive all over Puna checking out things around us and down the coast, but we realized we were low on gas. The nearest station was in the opposite direction of most of what we wanted to check out so we forfeited a few sites to fill the tank.

We did get to see one thing we’d wanted to check out. The neighbourhood we were in was called Kapoho, named after a town that was wiped out in 1960. Kapoho Point is the eastern-most spot on the Big Island. We could see it from our place but had never been there. It’s mostly ‘a’a (sharp, rough lava) with some pahoehoe (smooth) but it’s all tough-going for vehicles. The road to get there is a couple miles of washboard, and then it ends at some sort of tower. To get to the edge you need to off-road. The ocean is all around so you can choose almost any direction from the road. We decided to go straight ahead, which ended up being the best possible viewpoint.

New plan was to just head down highway 11 to Kona (3 hour drive) with a few stops along the way. But, as we got closer to Volcanoes National Park we decided to drop in and see if there had been any changes. Turns out they had just opened the remainder of Chain of Craters Road today. So, we headed down the road to catch the 14 miles we had missed on Sunday.

You’d think it would get boring looking at lava for 20 miles… but it really doesn’t. Every time you turn a corner there’s something new in the lava to look at. Small caves, arches, sharp lava, smooth lava, thin covering or 8 feet deep. It never gets old. Plus, at the end of the road you get great sea cliff views and great pics of the Holei Sea Arch.

We also noticed a lot of smoke coming over the hills behind us and we assumed it was from Halema'uma'u Crater since earlier on the road there was a warning along one section not to open your windows or get out of the car and you should only use recirculated air conditioning. Turns out they were two separate things. The warning about high sulfur dioxide levels was exactly what we thought it was. But the smoke we saw at the end of CoC Road was a forest fire apparently. One of the park rangers said that there was a forest fire raging over the hill that had been ignited by the latest flow of lava.

After we left the park we headed to Volcano Winery for a tour and a couple bottles for home. NOPE. Turns out they only offer one tour a day at 10am. Oops. And Darrin went to a wine tasting and said none of it was worth writing home about. So we left there quickly, and empty handed.

Next was Mauna Loa Road, which I accidentally confused with Mauna Loa Observatory Road on the complete opposite side of the mountain! But, we did get to see lava tree molds, so the drive was worth it. The molds were formed when a lava flow passed through the rainforest. The trees were so wet that the lava didn’t burn them immediately, instead, as they dried out the lava cooled around them. Then when the trees finally burned up, the lava had already hardened and left six-foot deep tubes where the trees had stood.

Our last stop before losing the sunlight was at Punalu’u Black Sand Beach. It was amazing to see 4 giant turtles resting on the beach. It was horrifying to see all the people walking up, patting them tapping them, snapping photos in their face. These guys are critically endangered and they should NOT be disturbed. Some people just don’t get it.

The rest of the drive was around the mountain. The speed limit was usually 35 or 45. For me it was like a roller coaster ride in the dark. For Darrin it was an exhausting night drive, with blind corners, hairpin turns and unmarked sections. There were no street lights (it’s rural) and minimum speeds are posted so you have to move quickly. Especially since locals who are familiar with the road start lining up behind you and can’t pass on the two-lane road around the entire volcano. That’s 30 miles of anxious cars riding up on your back to try to speed you up.

Now we’ve checked in at the Sheraton Keahou (it’s huge, we got lost trying to find our room) and tomorrow we start early.