After 3 weeks in the sun, it was time to head over to the chilly side, so off we fly to the island of Hawaii, nicknamed the Big Island. We split this island into 2 parts as it is too big to see from one base. After landing on the west side, we head to the south east, down and around to Volcanoes National Park, a wet and windy 4 hour drive. Made all the more interesting by huge signs indicating the years when each new volcanic eruption put huge lava flows across the landscape and built the island up to as high as it is today.
A rest stop at a lava flow, the road was cut through it so people could still travel around the island. On this stretch of the trip there was nothing for miles on either side of the road other than lava flow.
Next stop on the tourist trail was Punalu'u, and another black sand/rock beach. The beach before has actual green sand but the road was closed so we couldn't go down there. Shame though as that is definitely something we had not seen before. This life guard tower is built on top of lava rocks to keep an eye on the tourists, as it is a popular swimming spot and turtle feeding ground.
A full view of the beach area made up of broken down lava over many, many years of wave action.
You will have to look hard, but dead in the middle of this shot is a sea turtle on the rocks eating the seaweed. He looks like a rock himself. This beach is also a nesting ground for the turtles and some sections were roped off to protect the nesting area.
We spent 2 days on this side of the island and then headed up and around the top to get to Kona, the capital where we would spend the rest of the week. On our way around there were plenty of touristy places to stop but they were a bit off the beaten track and it was going to be a very long day driving anyway so we only stopped at one, the beautiful Akaka Falls. After that it was a straight drive through to the small cattle country town of Waimea for lunch, then straight down the west coast to our accommodation in Keauhou.
Dylan finally wanted to be a photo so we weren't going to say no.
Incredibly high and very beautiful, unfortunately the picture doesn't show the colours reflecting from the water spray below.
Gotta have a pic of it with us in it too.
Emily found this huge tree stump to crawl all over and we couldn't believe just how big the tree would have been if it was still standing there, given the size of the remaining trunk.
Lyndon found this huge, old Banyan tree to crawl around in like the monkey that he is. The flora and fauna across all islands of Hawaii is absolutely amazing.
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