What a day of contrasts! We started with a nice light breakfast of locally made bread, papaya, pineapple, orange juice and, of course, Kona coffee, in the little lobby area of our cute, quaint, quirky hotel. The weather seemed to be a bit better than when we arrived yesterday, but its hard to tell with all the vegetation in this rain forest environment. A quick look around shows you all varieties of tropical plants and flowers.
We headed off to the park entrance, got in free of course with our "Senior life time pass" card (best investment we ever made!). Here at the top of the park (we're about 4000') is the visitor center, the Volcano House Restaurant and Hotel and the Jagger Museum. We headed down the only road in the park, Chain of Craters Road, which takes you all the way down to sea level, to see the where the lava flows went into the ocean. There's also a 1.5 mile hike, across hot and lumpy lava flows, to an area of ancient petroglyphs. Down here at the bottom, its hot and windy, with brutal sunshine (I'll let you know tomorrow how badly we got burned!)
After all the hiking, we went back up the hill to the hotel for a quick shower and change, then over to the Volcano House for a really nice dinner, with a view out over the smoking crater.
S&M leave for Maui first light, we have another day here.
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| Our chalet grounds |
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| Trumpet flower - very fragrant |
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| This is what crater really looks like |
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| The Crater |
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| Steam venting out of the hill side |
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| Lunch on the way down the hill |
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| Holei Sea Arch |
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| Road closed! |
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| A very HOT hike |
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| Petroglyphs |
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| Back in the rain forest - Lava Tube hike |
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| Amazing vegetation |
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| Great view from the dining room |
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| See the crater in the background |
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| Lava spilled over the caldera rim and into the sea |
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