Bye bye volcanos

Another early start to try to push the little chevy over the heights again. We decided to go up Manua Kea this time. You cannot drive to the top in a rental, only to 9,000 feet. The rest is 4WD country. The little car really struggled over the long 17% ascents. We thought it was going to blow. Anyway we got there and the view was average.

The young woman was just opening up the information centre and set up the telescope so that we could look at the sun. She had one filter to show us sun spots and another to show sun flares. That was interesting.

We asked about short walks as the ten hour walk to the summit did not appeal. She suggest we ascend  a nearby cinder cone. Did not seem to bad and Marjan headed off in the lead.

In the rarefied air she was soon trailing....or so I thought. By the way, that is two small cinder cones behind Marjan and Mauna Kea is the black peak.

In fact she had been gem hunting and found a number of interesting olivine samples.

The view from the top was kinda good. In one direction, as you have seen, we had Mauna Kea a totally black peak. Apparently there is a lake up there, a tropical lake, that is fed from the permafrost. Awesomely nerdy.

On the other we have Mauna Loa, the most massive volcano in the world. It has 14km of piled lava, it is 9 km from ocean floor to peak and it is so heavy it has deformed the earth's crust. More nerdy stuff for you. The shadows on it are more recent lava flows. So we are standing somewhere above 9,000 feet looking down at the clouds being pushed into the high valley ( about 5-6,000 feet) between mountains. The little hill in front of the clouds is another volcano.

We really did not want to leave, it was a special landscape.

But leave we did! Into those clouds that covered the eastern part of the island....again. We  were heading for the north east coast which faces the trade winds and is therefore wet. Jungle really. We dropped by to see the Akaka falls among the interesting bamboo and odd flowers.

We stopped off at the pretty little town of Honomu for a potter. Lovely little place with lots of interesting artisan type shops.

It seemed very interesting coastline but it was hard to actually get a glimpse, as the foliage was blocking everything. What we saw looked good. We found a spot for lunch under the shade of the highway bridge overhead with some water in front and behind.

Not many beaches along this rugged coast, but we stopped occasionally.

And finally back to the resort pool for a dip and a book. 

We are now fed and rested and ready for our last day in Hawaii. I probably will not get a blog entry up as we will be getting an early night for a 6am plane.