Our marriage descends into the pit of despair

Got up early as we had a big day planned. We were out the door by 7:30. Over the mountain again and off to the Volcano National Park. We had gotten up to brillant sunshine but on the descent to the other end of the island we struck cloud, the fog then rain. It cleared a bit near Hilo but drizzle kicked in again as we drove into the national park.

We oriented ourselves by getting a map and eating a danish. Balancing the intellectual and physical needs is important. We did this whilst watching the volcano smoke..

Having got that out of the way we decided to descend into the caldera. Well not the one above. That is closed. A bit dicey for all concerned. No, there is a lava lake connected to this one just to the left of picture.

Our descent commenced in rainforest. It was drizzling at times and just damp at other. We were about 1200 metres above sea level in a quite interesting forest that gets about 120 inches of rain a year. Lots of orchids here apparently. We only spotted this bamboo orchid.

The drizzle kept up all the way down and across the lava lake. Apparently this exploded around 1959 and solidified in 1992. It was what Mordor would look like. Quite eerie, but nature kept trying to find footholds. The little trees looked like hakeas with lovely red flowers.

We finally got to the base and it was the strangest landsacpe. Black undulating lava flows with cracks everywhere. Occasinal patches of lighter colour where steam vents bring up minerals and steam vents popping up here and there. That is steam coming out of a crack in the rocks behind us.

I kept having to take off my glasses because the drizzle kept coming in flurries. It is 2.4 miles across the lava lake and we eventually made it and started our ascent. When we looked back we could see the lighter coloured trail left by walkers. Off to the right you can see the lighter patch of the steam vent we visited (naughty us venturing off trail).

Well, back up into the rainforset we went. We got back to the car almost three hours after we left. So we headed to Volcan House for a feed of raw fish ...and chips.....I got s strange look when I ordered the chips to go with the poke stack.....but it was a hungry pair who sat down to a view not unlike the first photo.

When we were sufficiently recovered, we drove down to the coast to see the most recent lava flows. As we descended the weather improved and was quite warm and sunny and the sea blue. You can see the 1973 flow.

Well we finally made it to the end of the road and checked out the flows that have been happening since 1983. I tried to keep them off the road but did not succeed.

Weird shapes

Aftr a while,we headed back. To give this some context, that is like looking up at Mt Dandenong from around Kilsyth. The 1972 lava flow,is the dark patch....just a small one.

And this is the lava field around Mauna Ulu. A little volcano, but it created a nice arrangement of shapes around itself. The lump in the distance is the volcano 6 miles away.

Well we visited a couple of other places but by then we had been there for over seven hours. Back we drove to Hilo, where we stopped off to buy sneakers...at cheap prices...and a bite to eat.

Our plan was to head to Mauna Kea for the stargazing. However the cloud got thicker and on the mountain became impenetrable fog. So instead we had a hair raising drive in the dark through thick fog on unfamiliar roads. They say a little stress is good for you. We had our share tonight.

However all's well now. We are back, recoverd and heading to noddy land.

Bye from Marjan, who descended to hell with me and made it back!