Hawaii

I’ve finally managed to convince Kris to post some photos.:)
Since there were still tons of pictures from Hawaii that he didn’t process yet, it was ideal to start with.

One of the main attractions on the Big Island is Volcano National Park.
It’s pretty spectacular, you can actually walk along the craters of still active volcanoes, you get access to lava tubes,…

Of course some areas are closed for public because of volcanic fumes.
The new eruptive vent in Halema`uma`u Crater, Sulphur Banks, and Pu‘u ‘O‘o vent generate high levels of gasses that may affect hikers. We did go there, but didn’t have any problems.

A road sign remains standing after the 1990 lava flows covered a large piece of Hwy 130 on the Big Island of Hawaii

The road in the picture above is also located in the National Park. In the distance you can see the smoke plume caused by lava flowing in the ocean. If you want to go to the lava viewing platform though, you have to exit the park and drive to Kalapana.

The platform opens around 5pm until 10pm. You have to call to check if the weather permits you to go out there. We were pretty lucky, because the platform was actually closed for a couple of days (just before we visited the site). Visitors were not allowed to hike up to the viewing point due to toxic and hazardous fumes. We were advised to get some flash lights, lots of water and hiking shoes. It wasn’t as dangerous as we expected but the authorities just want to make sure that visitors realize that they are walking on lava and there’s always the risk of cracks occurring.

The most spectacular time to watch is in the evening because of the colors (that’s also why they wanted visitors to carry flash lights).

The lava of the Kilauea volcano flows into the ocean and causes an enormous smoke plume.

The lava of the Kilauea volcano flows into the ocean and causes an enormous smoke plume.

As of February 1, 2010, lava has not been flowing into the ocean for at least 4 weeks.

Let’s talk about something else now.
We’ve mentioned before that we visited some of the Lost filming locations. In our search for some of those locations we also stumbled upon this nice place.

Waimea Falls after a flashflood causing the falls to turn brown.

For those interested:
In Season 1 we find Kate and Sawyer wandering through the jungle and coming across a beautiful pool and waterfall (Waimea Falls). As they dive into the pool, they soon discover the bodies of several passengers of Flight 815 at the bottom.

On some of our road trips:

Rocky Beach on Oahu

A traditional Hawaiian hut in an ancient fisherman’s native village in Lapakahi State Historic Park.

A traditional wooden Tiki statue on the Big Island of Hawaii

Painted Church, Big Island, Hawaii

The second main attraction was definitely the Mauna Kea Observatory. Something I’ve always wanted to visit! The top of the mountain houses world’s largest observatory for optical, infrared, and sub millimeter astronomy.
There was however one little problem: When you rent a car on The Big Island, there are limitations on where you can actually drive. If something happens to the car, when you drive in those restricted areas, they will not come and help you (they will not tow the car). Any damage to the car will be charged. One of those roads was the road up to Mauna Kea. They strongly advised us not to go there.

We went to the visitor center and checked with the park warden. He told us that it`s not advisable to drive up to the top without a 4×4. We both were disappointed but figured it was not worth the risk. We did get a NASA patch from the warden (small consolation). It was an LCROSS patch, because on that day you could observe the LCROSS impact. Pretty amazing!

When we stepped outside the center we met some Flemish people. We started talking and they told us they were visiting Hawaii to support Sietse De Laeter who was a participant in the 2009 Iron Man.
Obviously they were also disappointed that they were told not to drive to the top. We were talking about the possible risks of going there and all of a sudden a guy from Calgary shows up saying that he drove his Honda Civic up the mountain and it wasn’t a problem at all. We thought: if he can do it, so can we! We teamed up with the Belgian couple and started driving uphill. It was a gravel road and pretty steep, so definitely no ideal driving circumstances. But the main problem was actually the fact that the peak was at 4205m. There was a chance that there wasn’t enough oxygen for the car to get to the top.

We did slowly approach the top. We were about to park the car and all of a sudden the engine died. Well, at least we made it to the top!!
At that point we were so happy to be able to check out the observatory, that we didn’t really care whether the engine would start again.

I was suffering from altitude sickness so I wasn’t able to do a lot, but Kris did walk around and got a very nice shot:

A panorama of the Mauna Kea observatory at 4205m (13,800ft).

In the end, we got down the mountain just fine. Conclusion: An excellent day!

I think this was the last batch of pictures from Hawaii. We definitely had a good time and we both agree that this was a very memorable vacation!