Sunday May 1, 2016.
The fun continues! I am not sure how we will top this today!
We got up early and hit the road to head to our helicopter tour. Yes a real helicopter! I have wanted to fly in one for a long time so I was totally psyched to go. The ride was amazing!!
We flew between the two volcanoes over to the active crater on the east side of Hawaii.
The landscape on the West side is dry and barren. Going through the valley between the two volcanoes is covered in various colors of different lava flows. It was so fascinating to see that from the air. Really gives perspective on the enormity of it all.
We flew over the crater and got to see lava bubbling down below. It was so very cool!
After that we flew over Hilo and then up the East coast to view the cliffs and waterfalls on the coast. I took pictures with my DSLR and stole the ones below from Kris. It was so beautiful!
Kris and I with our pilot.
After the helicopter ride we drove north to the end of the north running road. We hiked down the trail to a black sand beach. The views were amazing!
I built a couple rock piles for fun and we cracked open a coconut.
We were planning to hit another beach but it was 2 o’clock and I felt beat up from the early morning, the heat and the hike down 1500 feet. So we headed back to the hotel.
However along the way I happened to see this amazing thing by chance as we were driving along. I told Kris to turn around. Turns out it was an amazing lava tube!
Lava flows are pretty interesting. This particular one had lots of gas in the lava as the rock is very holey. It is also very brittle. The colors in some of the rock was intense!
I am thoroughly enjoying our trip here!
We did finally return to the hotel where we swam for a bit, had dinner, then sat in the hot tub for a bit. Fun day!