Our final destination this day is the Halema’uma’u Crater, which is situated 1213 metres above sea level, and our coach driver Kyle’s plan is to arrive at the viewing area of the crater at sunset which is is deemed the most popular time of day to view this amazing phenomonen, an active volcano. From the viewing area I see two areas of gently bubbling lava in the single crater below, set beneath a sky richly painted with a riot of deeply hued wispy clouds. There are hundreds of spectators here this evening and they have all come to Hawaii’s Big Island with the same intention, to marvel at the earth’s raw beauty…”
Day Seventy One – 24th. November – Thursday – Departure for Hawaii is on time but it’s almost dark as we lift off, and the last of the day’s soft evening colour fades into blackness as we gain elevation. The flight is not too bad, five hours and twenty minutes, and all of it is over a black Pacific Ocean below. The plane lands, and I change my watch to Hawaiian time 8:35 pm, which is some three hours behind California, then I head to baggage claim to gather my bags. The Honolulu Airport has sections of open air walkways, corridors and access lanes. I walk through the doors to the first of these and the air is thick with humidity, so thick I feel I could slice it with a knife and eat it with a fork. Fresh, moist, and instantly it’s like I’m walking in a rainforest.
I arrange a shuttle bus ride for tonight to my hotel and return again, on Sunday, and then exit the airport to find my ride. I’m at the Shoreline Hotel in Waikiki half an hour later and it’s approaching 10:00 pm. The beach area is full of shops and people are everywhere enjoying the Thanksgiving holiday’s extended shopping hours, which are extra late tonight and tomorrow night. But I’m tired and simply couldn’t be bothered heading out. My room at the Shoreline has a view, albeit onto a shabby apartment building, but apart from that it’s a very nice room in a nice hotel, with complimentary ice water with lime or chilled ice tea in jugs in reception and hot tea and coffee available 24/7. I settle in.
Day Seventy Two – 25th. November – Friday – I have not arranged for breakfast at the hotel this morning so I head out around 9:00 am to hunt and gather. I find a nice cafe and enjoy fruit, a bagel and cream cheese, then coffee, and then I walk to a shop front not far away called Tours 4 Less. I ask what is available to do over the next two days and then devise an itinerary that will enable me to see a bit of the Hawaiian Islands, as well as keep myself occupied. I head off by 10:30 am to Duke’s Statue near the Hyatt Hotel, on the beach a block or so down the street, and find a multitude of people enjoying the nearby silver of white sand, vivid turquoise water, sun and balmy humid breezes.
I watch for the Blue Line Bus, an open air bus, two levels, which will take me on a route to the west coast and return. I’m doing three activities. This first tour is for two and a half hours and whilst you can hop off, it’s not possible to catch this same bus for another three hours so everyone gets off for photos here and there, then immediately gets back on. The tour guide is interesting, funny, and soon the wind picks up and it starts raining, hot rain. It’s not all unpleasant but I’m sitting on the top level, with twenty other people, and we are all dressed in cheap plastic rain ponchos over the top of our clothes, trying to stop the plastic from madly flapping, and ourselves getting too wet. But it’s a hopeless task as the rain blows in under the canopy in a flurry of wild horizontal bursts, and I decide it’s simply best to put the camera away under the plastic cover to aid it staying dry.
Within minutes though the small storm has passed, and suddenly we are in resplendant sunshine again. A fun experience and quite normal for this time of year as November is the tail end of hurricane season I am told. We journey to several locations and along the way the guide tells us interesting snippets of history, stories about movie stars like Elvis Presley, and facts about geology and weather, and the cost of real estate in this beautiful part of the world.
At 1:30 pm I return to the hotel. I look rather like a drowned rat as a second short rainstorm on our return journey and my position on the bus, meant that I was caught in it again and I simply couldn’t avoid the roof dribbling it’s overflows onto the seats next to me as well as along then down the back of mine making escape impossible. I get in the shower and wash my hair, then get ready to depart on my second activity today, a trip to the Paradise Cove Luau. I am on a shuttle by 3:30 pm and there we meet our tour guide for the night, Ky. There’s around twenty in our group.
Paradise Cove is on the south westerly part of the island about half an hour’s drive away and upon arrival we are given either a shell or fresh flower lei. It’s all relative to how much money you’ve chosen to spend on the exercise and at $89 USD I am no a huge spender, but that includes a $12 voucher to use in the bar, and a shell lei. I figured a fresh flower lei would be wasted on me as I would be leaving the day after tomorrow and I wouldn’t be able to take it with me but the fresh flower lei’s are gorgeous and made with orchids. And those wearing them look very much part of the Hawaiian culture. A mixed cocktail called a Mei Tai upon arrival is also complimentary.
From the garden entrance to Paradise Cove the visitor heads into an area of mixed activities. We’ve been advised by Ky to partake in everything as it’s part of the experience and the evening’s entertainment. I head to an area of open sand with makeshift tables erected on it. Here there are beautiful plaited head bands being woven from Palm leaves, I am fitted for size with one, and then orchids and frangipani flowers are threaded into it. Right or left side mamm? Right, means you are single. Left, married, taken or spoken for. An advertisement as to availability I am thinking. Next I have an arm bracket of woven leaves also fitted. Again orchid and frangipani flowers are added. I’m now feeling quite the part, an Hawaiian lady, damn, should have gotten that fresh flower lei, it would have looked gorgeous with my two fresh flower additions.
After adorning the old girl, I head to a spot where a lass is engraving names onto leather bands. The words she is writing is your name translated into Hawaiian. Mine is a pink leather band and Glenys is translated as Mai Ke Awawa. I also get a tan leather one for my daughter Sarah with her name in Hawaiin on it.
I then get a cocktail at the bar, a Lava Flow, and head down to the beach to watch a demonstration of fishing with nets from an outrigger canoe, Hawaiian style. I walk across to see a selection of exotic birds. Parrots, and the like. Vibrant, blue, green, red and yellow. Guests are invited to have their photos taken with them, for a price of course.
A conch shell has been blasting off and on at irregular intervals for the past hour. It signals an impending activity and always draws the crowd. The next place to wander is back to the beach where there’s dancing at the water’s edge with the setting sun in the background. The sun is directly in front of me and it’s light spills across the water in a golden blaze of metallic hues, and I, along with a few others, take some photos of it as it dips its way below the horizon. The sky colours behind me, a beautiful musky pink and mauve as the sun disappears.
There’s music to the far west of the gardens in a small paved area, with more dancing, it’s lit on its perimeter by several naked flame torches, billowing vivid orange flames into the balmy calm of evening. There’s a short ceremony there, and two men uncover a whole pig that has been cooking in a hot stone pit for the past twelve hours. It will be tender with such a slow steaming and baking process. The two men then transfer it onto a board that has four handles and then they walk around the area’s perimeter near the small elevated surrounding amphitheatre where guests are seated as they take it across for the chefs to carve up and pull apart, in preparation for dinner. The dancing continues.
As the sky darkens, the conch shell sounds for the last time and everyone is called to dinner, grace is spoken in Hawaiian and English, then everyone is invited to gather at the buffet to join in the Luau feast. I have a third cocktail, another Lava Flow. I pay for this one. It’s a good drink. Refreshing, sweet and alcoholic. The dancers on the stage start performing and they are beautiful, lovely Hawaiian ladies and men, dancing the slow hula, a sitting hula and performing a series of other Hawaiian native dances. There’s also a dance in New Zealand Maori and Tongan costumes as well, as well as a fire dancer and dancing with a selection of Hawaiian musical instruments. The evenings crescendo is a fast paced hula. Riveting.
The bus takes us back to Waikiki after the evening ends at 10:00 pm. The shops are open, it’s late, but I have to get up early in the morning to catch a flight the The Big Island, my third planned activity. The pickup is scheduled outside my hotel room at 7:00 am.
Day Seventy Three – 26th. November – Saturday – The pickup this morning is in front of the hotel at 7:00 am, and I join several other tourers on the journey making their way to the airport to fly to The Big Island where, I’m told, a goddess calledvAina a ke akua i noho ai on dwells. It is also the home of the summit of Mauna Loa which stands 56,000 feet or 17,000 metres above the depressed sea floor and the active Halema’uma u Crater.
The flight is 41 minutes from Honolulu and we arrive around 10:00 am, and meet with our driver come tour guide, a different Kyle, and head off on our journey of volcanic discovery promising a unique and exciting experience for us all.
We begin at a Hilo’s Black Sand Beach where there is a phenomenon where lava flows and the debris created from its mixing with sea water, results in a black sand beach. We are told later in the day there is also a green sand beach on the island, a result of a different composition of geology in lava flows at a particular place on the island, there apparently the sand is an emerald colour.
We stop by Rainbow Falls, an 80 foot waterfall which falls over an ancient lava cave for a half hour, then we head into the Hawaii Volcanos National Park, driving by most of the tourist stop offs except for two huge dormant craters which we stop and visit and are, we are told, two popular destinations for hikers.
With access to the upper rims of each crater only a few metres from the road it takes little time to break through the young thick virgin vegetation to view below each crater’s solid flat surface of cooled lava and it’s easy to spot the well worn tracks of the hikers who have come here to discover new things. And here and there, like ants, I see several people today venturing onto the virgin rock that now plugs these once active monliths.
After leaving the dormant craters we head straight for a coastal outlook known as Pu’u Los Petroglyphs along Chain of Craters Road. The road is a meandering trek that winds its way downhill in a lazy fashion over vast lava fields, but such is the frequency of lava flows here that I see several different flows in the years since the road was formed that now cross straight over the Chain of Craters Road as the lava has taken a more driect route, than the road has, to the sea.
From the sea’s edge, I stand well above the breaking roiling surf, crashing against the seemingly impenetrable wall of old lava flow, and in the far distance I can see steam rising where the volcano’s current lava flow enters the sea by simply dropping off the cliff’s edge some two kilometers away.
Heading back the way we came then onto the volcano’s currently active crater called Halema’uma’u, there are several vantage points where there is evidence of multiple volcanic lava flows over much of the surrounding landscapes from different eruptions. The landscape gives an overview perspective, and I quickly realise that not all lava flows are the same. In one place I see lava once flowed in an entirely liquid form which was capable of crossing easily across the terrain in a flowing waterlike manner, like fine grained clay or runny mud. In other locations however, I see other lava flows that were once more dry and sand like, crumbly even, and incapable of flowing easily across the terrain in a flowing waterlike manner but which has often broken into larger chunks and piled up here and there, and simply tumbled around as it moved along, unable to navigate any smooth path across the surface of the landscape over which it was travelling. Also here and there are tiny but persistent and resiliant plants growing on these desolate wastelands. The start of new life on virgin rock and ground.
The group hops out of the coach several times and we actually get to walk on the old lava fields. They are beautiful. Desolate, pristine and unblemished by man’s intervention and the landscape seems new, and I feel like I’m viewing the the latest handiwork of God.
The Thurston Lava Tube or Nahuku is our next stop as we gain elevation on the trek back up towards the active crater Halema’uma’u on Chain of Craters Road which is higher up and nearer the top of the active Kilauea Volcano. The Thurston Lava Tube was originally formed as the lava flow on the outer crust began to harden whilst the lava in the inner part of the tube continued to flow. Once the flow stops, and drains away, the natural tubelike tunnel formation remains. It is thought the Thurston Lava Tube could date back some 350-500 years and the tube is named for Lorrin Thurston, a newspaper publisher that played an instrumental role in creating the park.
When we arrive at Thurston Lava tube I take the short but steep trail down from the area where the coach is parked, through lush vegetation replete with tropical ferns and singing honeycreeper birds called Apapane then I cross a short bridge before entering the damp dark world of the lava tube. And it is a fabulous experience walking the tube which is lit for safety reasons by a series of soft gold and orange lights. But it’s a fast walk, as I have only enough time to trek the tube if I’m very very quick. It’s damp and dark down here, eerie and silent except for the small number of visitors today trekking the tube’s length and it’s a fascinating experience, that ends for me, all too quickly. When I reach daylight at it’s furtherest end I have an opportunity to continue through a gated area into the un-lit portion of the cave but time constraints and having stopped occasionally to take photos along the way today, means I simply must turn back immediately and retrace my steps along the tube then back up the step incline and boarded stairwells that led me here if I am to arrive back at the coach on time.
Further on we come to a plateau area where the ground and surrounding landscape is relatively undulating although we are very high in elevation being almost at the top of the volcano.
Here and there we see voluminous amounts of steam gasping through the natural seams and crevices that litter this volcanic landscape and the steam is a constant reminder of the highly active volcanic nature of this park. It’s also a reminder to take caution where you walk as the seams and crevices are natural deep valves that connect with the sleeping giant below’s potential fury and the moist but humidly warm atmosphere above. The landscape and it’s surrounding tropical vegetation are also testimony to the active nature of this dozing beast.
Our final destination this day is the Halema’uma’u Crater, which is situated 1213 metres above sea level, and our coach driver Kyle’s plan is to arrive at the viewing area of the crater at sunset which is is deemed the most popular time of day to view this amazing phenomonen, an active volcano. From the viewing area I see two areas of gently bubbling lava in the single crater below, set beneath a sky richly painted with a riot of deeply hued wispy clouds. There are hundreds of spectators here this evening and they have all come to Hawaii’s Big Island with the same intention, to marvel at the earth’s raw beauty.
Kyle tells us the visitor centre, the Jagger Museum, set back behind the current viewing area, was shifted from an earlier vantage point as a spate of rather significant volcanic activity when washing machine sized debris being spewed from the crater set the original surrounding tourist development area on fire. The live volcano below is a breathtaking sight but it is calm here tonight. Almost a non event in terms of fury, but I have to ask the question, “would one be within cooee of any volcano if the full real and raw potential of the beast below were to be unleashed?”
The coach returns us to the airport on Big Island and after buying a bite to eat for dinner, it’s a short 41 minute but late evening, flight back to O’ahu. Again the shops are all open on my arrival in Waikiki. And again, I’m simply too tired to go out. I repack my luggage a final time and go to bed.
Day Seventy Four – 27th. November – Sunday – I depart for Melbourne via Sydney early this morning and it’s going to be a full day of travel for me even though the stop over in Sydney is not lengthy.
My flight crosses the international date line so I immediately lose a day arriving in Melbourne the same day as I left but arriving on a different date. I have now flown anti clockwise completely around the globe and my trek took seventy five days. I purchased a Round The World Ticket for just over AUD $4k including taxes and I am hoping the jet lag doing it this way, with a reasonably short last leg, is nil.
Day Seventy Five – 28th. November – Monday – Sarah picks me up from Tullamarine Airport in Melbourne and we head for Bendigo shortly after, and all too soon, I am finally safely home! And, I must add, looking forward to yet another adventure down the track, as I have well and truly been bitten by the travel bug.
I hope you have enjoyed reading my travel blog Round The World In Seventy Five Days
Cheers
Glenys
Added Notes: Travelling around the world was a bucket list item for me and I was fortunate in that I had time off work to do it at a reasonable pace. The rules for buying a Round The World Ticket are fairly simple. I was permitted up to sixteen flights, but I had to travel in the one direction, which was west for me for this trip. I was not permitted to fly east or backwards on this journey. I could travel north west or south west though. In actuality I did only thirteen flights as a part of the ticket, but added an extra flight in Hawaii flying east that wasn’t part of the Round The World Ticket deal. Also I booked two 23kg suitcases as I planned to buy some souvenirs along the way and as well as those, I was also permitted an additional 7 kg hand luggage item.
My first two flights were with Cathay Pacific, Melbourne to Hong Kong, then Hong Kong to Zurich. I travelled with a friend from Zurich to Bosco Gurin Switzerland then used public transport to trek from Bosco Gurin in Switzerland to Milan in Italy from where I then flew onto London England with British Airways. My fourth flight from London England to Dublin Ireland was also with British Airways then I flew from Dublin Ireland to New York in the United States with American Airlines. From there I trekked from New York to Buffalo with a different friend. Further flights in North America were Buffalo to Chicago then Chicago to San Francisco, San Francisco to Los Angeles then Los Angeles to Honolulu and they were all flights with American Airlines. Qantas however was my chosen airline for my flight from Honolulu Hawaii to Sydney, then Sydney to Melbourne Australia.
The company that received the money from my Round The World Ticket purchase was Cathay Pacific. Apparently all flights after the first flight are an honour system as Round The World Tickets are paid only to the first airline company the tourer travels with. It’s a luck of the draw set up. It was an adventure and something I’d happily recommend to others as I managed to combine several tours and many adventures with different friends on this journey as well as visit mostly new places I hadn’t been to before.
Thank you sincerely for taking the time to read my Blog. I hope you enjoyed the journey with me!