Black Sand Beach / Volcano National Park

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On our second day on the big island we went for another big drive. We went to the black sand beach, which was pretty surreal. We then headed to the Volcano national park. Driving around was pretty cool, there was steam rising from the ground and lava flows everywhere. We eventually made our way to the active area. Under the old lava flows there are lava tunnels which the molten rock flows along till it meets the ocean. We arrived just at sunset which was perfect as it is hard to see the red glow during the day. After the sunset there was even a red glow in the sky and lava seemed to come out from everywhere. Although it was pretty cool, you really don’t get as close or see as much active lava as the postcards show.
After we left the national park we had one major problem we were fast running out of petrol, oh I mean ‘gas’. We were very worried that we weren’t going to make it back to the village. Luckily, we did but by this time the petrol station was closed. However, we were told that there was another station just up the road. We tried and tried and tried and we couldn’t get the pump to work, it was a prepaid pump. Eventually we gave up and ended up asking a waiter at the Thai restaurant he told us that the station was actually closed and that the nearest station was at the military base back in the national park - damn! By this time we were starving and the smell of the Thai restaurant got the better of us. So we decided to eat and then try for gas or sleep in the car if we had to. The meal was fantastic and we then made our way to the military base nervously. This time our gamble paid off. We managed to work the prepaid pump and get enough petrol for our two hour drive home.

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Comments

[Ben]

fashion guru
Glad to see you keeping it real with the FLIPFLOPS George tho not sure if they're designed for hot lave flow!!!