Hilo Hawaii 5 Oct 94

Things are looking up (Hilo, Hawaii)

WELL THOSE of you who worried about us yesterday will be pleased to know that we had a much more positive experience today.

We now have our new suitcase packed and functional, we had a wonderful day exploring the Volcano National Park, and life is picking up. We are still tired, and didn't get away until around 9.30am but it was only 30 miles to the National Park.

Nene We started off looking around the Visitors' Center and then went on an hour's walk led by a National Park ranger. The guide had a wonderful sense of humour and gave a great introduction to the native and introduced flora and fauna (such as the Nene shown here), to what happens in volcanic eruptions and even to the native Hawaiians' beliefs about Pele, the goddess of fire and volcanoes. We followed this with a film about volcanoes - then we were ready to explore on our own.

First of all we started with the most important part - we had a snack lunch in Volcano House, which has sat on the brim of a caldera since 1846. A great view from the dining room window gave us a taste of this historic hotel without the cost of staying there. The volcanic fireplace has had a fire burning in it continually for more than 100 years - even supposedly surviving the fire that burnt down the original hotel in 1940!

In the lava tube Finally, fully prepared, we set off exploring. It was cooler and more pleasant than down on the coast. We walked through a rainforest walk that took us through a 400 year-old lava tube. This is where lava has been flowing and the outside cools and hardens while the inner lava keeps flowing out - eventually leaving a hollow tube. This tube was 30 feet high in places and 18 feet wide, with plenty of air flowing through, so even I was untroubled by it.

Cathy on rock younger than her Later we walked along a "devastation trail" - in 1959 an eruption covered a rainforest area with 2 metres of ash. As you come around a corner from a lush tropical area there is the incredible spectacle of black hills broken only by occasional burnt-white pieces of wood. Someone else commented how weird it was to walk on rock younger than you. Even Cathy found rock that only flowed there in 1993.

We left the Crater Rim Drive and Lava flowing into sea started down the 21 mile "chain of craters road" - with marked lava flows from the 1950s, then the 1960s, 1970s and eventually the 1980s. Eventually the road was blocked by lava from the current flow that started in 1983 and is still flowing down into the sea. We had to be careful where we stopped to avoid the cloud of steam, volcanic gases (hydrochloric acid and sulphur) and volcanic glass fragments rising from the sea where the lava flows in.

Black sand on the beach indicated where the lava cooled so quickly it shattered into sand. Hundreds of acres of new land are added to the island every year. And it was amazing to see the first signs of the plants coming back - areas devastated 30 years ago now have small plants, some ferns and even the beginning of the native Ohia Lehua (the state plant, with a delightful story of Types of lava Ohia - a scorned lover of the goddess Pele turned into a tree and his love, Lehua, turned into a red flower on the tree).

We discovered there were different types of lava. One was "pahoehoe" lava which still looks smooth and molten (as opposed to the "aa" lava, that is all broken lumps and crystally from cooling more quickly).

Jaggar Museum, Hawaii We drove back up to the Crater Rim road and on to the Jaggar museum, which had scientific equipment as well as other displays, portraying more of the volcanic story. What was particularly fascinating was to see the seismographic reading of the 8.2 earthquake yesterday in Japan - the one behind our tsunami scare. We arrived in the park at 10.30am and left after 5pm, so we covered a fair amount of walking and looking.

On the way home we remembered the budget that would see us last our year-long planned travels. We stopped at a Safeways supermarket and bought supplies for a picnic dinner and breakfast in our room.

Kids writing their journals Currently the kids are writing their journals. Yesterday they wrote up 2 days of factual reports of what they had done for the first 2 days. Today Justin is writing about how the Hawaiian islands were formed by volcanoes, while Cathy is writing about how Pele formed the islands. Last night David and I restored our belongings to a functional order in our new case; the kids' bag is still piled up and disordered after our chaotic exit and return yesterday.

We have another full day tomorrow where we plan to visit some waterfalls and a macadamia plantation and maybe explore the town of Hilo before the next day setting out for the other side of the island. We may then be incommunicado until San Francisco as far as email via Compuserve is concerned.

The kids sent off their first postcards to friends today and seeing them sitting up tonight writing - well things are looking more positive, so you won't necessarily find us arriving home in a week or so. It was great to receive welcoming email letters last night from both sets of our parents. Hopefully you'll be relieved to hear cheerier news than yesterday.

Goodnight & best wishes from Kerry.

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