Hawaii Volcano and Turtles

Today we will once again traverse the southern area of the Big Island for a hiking trek near Kilaeua Cauldron. We checked the webpage of the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park before we left home (http://www.nps.gov/havo/planyourvisit/lava2.htm) to find out the condition of the volcano. They actually have a webcam mounted so you can see what’s going on in real time: http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/cams/panorama.php?cam=KIcam.

As we drive to the other side of the island, I want to write a little, and share this bird photo with you. In addition to all the beautiful fish we saw while snorkeling, we have also seen some different birds than we have back in Illinois. But, to my surprise, we also have seen Illinois’ state bird, the cardinal! There is an ‘ukulele song called Yellow Bird that I learned with the Ukulele Macomb group, but I don’t know what bird that song refers to. I have seen several different yellow birds in the past few days. Here is one I photographed:

I saw another yellow bird yesterday that had a white ring around its eye. I’ve seen other birds that have yellow markings….time to get a bird guide….

I recently learned that the location of the Hawaiian islands may have been guessed at by the Polynesians by observing the golden plover. This little bird migrates between Polynesia and Alaska every year, using Hawaii as a stopover, approximately halfway between the two destinations (2,500 miles either way!).

On the way to the volcano we stopped at a black sand beach to see the sea turtles. There were a couple of beached ones, and plenty more in the water. It was a bit too rough to go into the water, but often a turtle would bob its head above water. That was hard to get a photo of, and I tried to make a clip of a part of a video - the turtle's head was above water for about 1 second! You will just have to take my word for it. But here is a photo of one of the beached ones. Hopefully we will swim with the turtles soon and I will be able to post a video then.

 

Then, on to the park! After entering the park, we drove straight to the trailhead for the 4-mile Kilauea Iki Crater trail. Going counter-clockwise around the crater, you get to walk through tree ferns in a rainforest for the first mile or two, then you step down loose lava rocks into the crater itself.

Starting our hike in the fern tree rainforest

View of the crater from the rainforest

Zooming in on the scene so you can see the people hiking across the crater

How to get across the crater without getting lost

Example of rocks from aforementioned sign 

About halfway across the crater, there is a steam vent, which you can peer into if you wish, but there isn’t much to see – a crevice in the rock with steam coming out. We thought the crater floor would be unbearably hot, but there was a nice cool breeze blowing the entire time, and it didn’t take as long to cross as we first thought it would.

Steam Vent

We were happy to find out that this trail took us right to the Thurston Lava Tube before we returned to the parking lot where we had left the car. This lava tube was formed when hot lava once flowed downslope towards the ocean – the exterior of the flow cooled while the interior remained hot and fluid, and continued moving down, leaving the emptied lava tunnel behind. It reminded me of walking through a cave. Apparently early Hawaiians have used these fairly common formations as places of refuge and as burial caves. Some lava tubes are many miles long.

It was a wonderful hike altogether, and now we head back to the Kona side of the island, where we should be before the sun sets.

Sun through clouds as seen from Ocean View on our way "home"

Sunset from our deck