Day 3: The Big Island Tour

A piece of volcanic rock

On the Lava Field

Craters and volcanic cloud.

Today I visited the big island of Hawaii. It was an early start. I had to get up at 5am to meet my bus for 6am. When I got picked up the driver went to anumber of hotels. I was the first pick up. Once everyone was picked up we had to go on another bus which took us to the airport. We went throgb security and waited round a bit. While I was waiting I met a retired man who was taking his white albino cat to the Big Island. He had a leish around the cat and a little which had a mesh type material in which the cat would see out of. The was let out of his bag while we were waiting for the plane to come in. I patted the cat and he was gorgeous. He was short haired.

When I got the plane arrived it took around 40 minutes to get to the Big Island of Hawaii. I flew with Hawaiian airlines and we were met by a man at the Big Island who would show us the bus. Then we went on the bus. It was raining on the island. It is known to be the wettest island and the weather was a lot cooler. The first place we stopped at was a black beach. We were then met by our tour driver named Dennis. He was very nice but one thing I noticed was his two front teeth were missing. He broke a lot of words into syllables. I was wondering English was his first language. On the bus tour we were given the lunch menu for the Lava Rock Cafe. Each item on the menu was numbered. Once we decided we had to find a laminated number in his bag and then called out the number to Dennis. From there he spoke to the restaurant at the other end. We were told to keep our numbers on us until we arrived at the restaurant. I sat with a couple who live in New York but were from Toronto originally and a lady from California called Adele who was travelling on her own, as her husband was sick at their hotel and couldn't go on the trip.

On the trip we stopped at a waterfall called the rainbow falls. It was very scenic. Then we headed off to a Macadamia nut plantation. They had a souvenir shop where you could buy flavoured macadamia nuts. I bought an ice cream there. Then we had lunch at a little rustic cafe in the middle of nowhere. It was still raining and mild. After lunch we went to the volcano national park. It was fascinating as there were of dried up lava. The lava felt like coal. There was an eruption in 1974 which leaked out lava over five years. I took some photograps of the field. Then we headed off into the bush. It was amazing how in one part of the National Park you would see lava fields and then in the next part you would see rainforest.

After the lava fields we headed out to see the Lava tubes. The lava tubes consisted of going through these caves in the bush. After this we went to this big crater pit in which you could see these steamy pits from up high. I did part of the bush walk. Then we went to this volcano museum. They had an focussing on earthquakes and the other area on volcanoes. It was interesting but I got a little bored. I think tiredness was setting in and the weather wasn't very nice. A bit like west coast rain and the clouds kept cover the double craters across from the museum. After this Dennis the tour guide gave us the choice to be driven to a shopping mall on the island or to go off to the airport. There were people in the group that had earlier flights than us. I chose to go to the airport earlier. Adele the other solo traveller did the same and we just talked. She is a radiologist at a hospital in California. She lived north of Los Angeles. It was interesting talking to her. It was interesting going though security. We all had to be x-rayed. With my x-ray results part of my leg was highlighted red, which meant that part of my leg was patted down. It wasn't a big deal and the lady was very good. She thanked me for my co-operation. The pat down was a light touch more up the seams of my jeans.

The flight back was very nice. I meant company representative at the airport. He then guided us to the bus and the driver took us back to our hotels. I was the last to be dropped off. I arrived in at 9:30am. It was a great day out and it was interesting looking at the lava fields.

Inside the lava tubes / caves.