day 7

Off to the Puna district today. First stop was the Lava Tree State Park. The lava trees were formed when fast flowing Pahoehoe lava came up against wet ohi’a trees. A thick lava coating was left on the trees which hardened while the trees slowly burned. In some of them you could even see the bark pattern left on the hardened lava.We had to be careful with Abbie in the wheelchair as there were huge cracks on either side of the path created by an explosive eruption in 1790.

Bark pattern on lava tree, Lava Tree State Park, Puna

Lava tree, Lava Tree State Park, Puna

We then went pasta thermal power plant. Twenty per cent of the electricity on the island comes from thermal sources. Here there is a basket ball sized hole in the ground that is 1 mile deep. This releases steam which drives turbines.
This is also an area of papaya farms and due to the decimation of the crop by disease in 1950’s papayas were the first GM crop sold in the USA. The plants were quite odd looking reminding me of brussel sprouts as the bald stem had a crown of fruit and leaves at the top.
We then went to Cape Kumukahi, the Eastern most point of the Island. It is said that some of the best air in the world is here and many governments use it as a measure to compare their own air quality to. I was really looking forward to this but all got was the smell of lava and dust!
We then went to the Kapoho tide pools. These are a series of tide pools some volcanically heated that link up and are great swimming and snorkelling holes. Tam and Abbie saw lots of fish there.

Abbie and Tam, Kapoho Tide Pools, Puna

We then moved onto the Ahalanui Hot Pond. Again volcanically heated being spring and ocean fed but this time in the form of one large natural swimming pool. This time Nick braved it as well.
Then it was time for the highlight of the day – hiking to within half a mile to where the lava hit the sea. It was amazing.

lava hitting Ocean, as seen from road Puna

From the road we got quite a good view but as we hiked across the already cooled lava the sun was going down and the lava and fume cloud became clearer and the colours reflected more. It was like firework night as the lava exploded into the air in showers of sparks and fire while the whole show was reflected in the fume cloud. Each explosion was met with oohs and aahs from the growing crowd. We had to turn to go back before it got too dark as, although we had torches, it was starting to rain and we didn’t want to take a risk with Abbie on the uneven surface. On the way back to the car we even managed to see some red glow of moving lava on the cliffs high above the sea!

lava hitting Ocean, Puna

After that all we could do was go back to Nahele and the Jacuzzi!

Family Cowley in the Jacuzzi, Nahele, Volcano

Hilo, United States