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Published: September 14th 2006
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Smoke on the Water
The smoke is from where the Lava runs into the sea. Hey
Flew over to Kona on the Big Island from Honolulu on the 9th September on the tiniest Plane ever. By the time we arrived it was getting pretty dark so we had the option of hiring a car or paying for a Taxi to the hostel we'd earmarked to stay in Kona. After muchos hanging around the Car Rental companies we found out that because we were both under 25 there would be an extra surcharge of nearly $30 a day for us to hire a car, We had seen one company offering no surcharge on under 25 drivers on the internet so we thought we'd check it out the next day. Hiring a car is pretty much essential on the Big Island because the public transport here isn't great and relative to Oahu everything is really spread out.
We decided to ring up the hostel and see if they could pick us up: however we found out that they were full for the night- fiasco! We eventually found a hostel that was about 30 miles south of the airport who would pick us up for $15 each (bit of a rip but we were in a bit
Lava Bridge
Created by the way lava has ran into the sea. of pickle!) The negative of this hostel was that as tommorow was Sunday there would be no buses into Kona so we couldn't use the internet-aaahhh!!
As it happened though a guardian angel would be sent to us in the form of a 59 year old Vietnam War Vetran going by the name "Twelve" who was staying at the hostel. Twelve was in the Big Island looking for a place to live after growing tired of living in Waikiki for 6 years! We got chatting to him about all sorts of random stuff, he was an intelligent guy with a few stories to tell: after two years in 'Nam he got severely wounded in one leg and spent the next year and a half in hospital before taking advantage of the military retirement (and all the perks that come with this) Anyways, he said he liked our company and he'd met some kind English people in the past who'd helped him out so he thought it was good karma to help us out in our hour of need: he said he'd take us on the 250 mile round trip to the Volcano Park the next day for the cost
of gas! East as!
Early doors the next day we went to the Volcano National Park, the Volcano in the Big Island has ben active since 1983, much like myself then. Because of Twelve's Military past we each saved ourselves $10 on Park entry cos we were in his car. Upon entering the Park we went to a nearby Military Base Camp where Twelve treated us to a Picnic styled lunch in the park, regaling us with more of his life stories: it's good having friends in high places!
The whole Park is pretty huge and you can't take a photograph of the enormity of it unless your a few thousand feet up in the air. We done a bit of a trek, walking along the coast as near as we could safely go to the point where the lava runs into the water and creates a big smoke. We had to walk over Lava that had flown down the volcano a few years ago and had since hardened: it used to be a road but beacause of the constant state of eruptions for the past 20+ years there isn't much of a road anymore.
After our
On the Road again
After 100s of metres of Lava covering the road it randomly reappeared again, for a few metres at least. trek we drove another 10 miles to get to the crater of a volcano, Twelve discouraged us from going to the tourist lookout and instead took us on a bit of a batcave to get closer to the crater's edge: he's a bit of a daredevil. On the way back to our hostel we quickly checked out a black sand beach before getting some food in for the night.
The next morning Twelve dropped us off at Kona, where we booked into the hostel that was full when we initially arrived. It got an awful write up in the Rough guide but has since moved address and is wellgood, it used to be called Patty's Place but i forget what it's called now?! On our first day we went to the beach and chilled out. The next day we got active again, hiring bikes and cycling 4 miles to the Turtle Beach, here we were able to snorkel. As well as seeing all the usual fish suspects when you snorkel we also seen Sea Turtles. They were a lot bigger than i expected, apparently they don't bite though : looks really cool when they pop their heads out of
the water for a while.
Got back to Waikiki today, head to LA tomoz, should be good.
that's all from me,
Mike
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Catherine Smith
non-member comment
Come in No. TWELVE
You jammy little devil. How lucky was that, getting someone to take you on a tour of the island for the price of Petrol? Sounds like a very nice bloke. I'm sure there was more to Hawaii than volcanoes though! Looks rather like Lanzarote National Park. Take care in LA Mike and we'll see you on the 6th. We're off to sunny Spain tomorrow (at least I hope it's sunny). MamX