Circum - Hawaii

Hi All,

Today I picked up my rent a car, a brand new, very shiny white Toyota Camry, with only 104 Miles on the clock. Today, I added an extra 250 miles by doing a round the island trip. It took most of the day as driving is slow here, often on 35mph or sometimes less. There is very little highway zoned to do the 55 MPH speed limit.

Here is a Map to give some reference,  I am staying at Hilo on the eastern side of the island, for the navigationally challenged, the right side. Hilo was my starting point and I headed north in an anti clockwise direction. 

This was a scenic spot about 10 mile (16K) north of Hilo

This place was further north on the eastern to north side, I can't remember the name, but it had lots of vowels and the occasional H, L and M, I think. Nice Clam Chowder though.

After passing through Waimea, this was near Kalaoa looking back across lava flows towards the island centre. The next pic is the same place looking at a beach resort. Looks design built to me, not much beach and plenty of condos. Not recommended.

another view of the west coast, mostly lava flows down to the sea.

The White Camry

The three pics above were taken by hand whilst I was driving through KONA, very resortish and way over developed, I am glad I did not choose to stay on this side of the island. Yet, I expect some will prefer the KONA side as it has much more people and activities. Except the 2 things I was interested in, Volcano and Telescopes, which are closer to Hilo.

This is the far south coast, there is a place called Captain Cook, which I must have passed to get here but I saw no signs for a turn off to it.

As above, the dark strips are lava flows from Mauna Loa.

This is looking back to Mauna Loa, The BIG Volcano that has essentially created the Hawaii Island, it is 3000 meters higher than where this pic was taken, which is the Jagger museum in the Volcano National Park (effectively Kilauea Volcano). Mauna Loa last erupted in 1984 and in one day sent lava flowing 25 mile downhill to the outskirts of Hilo. Nowhere is safe on this Island, never buy land here.

More Pics of the Vent at Kilauea, this time with plenty of memory card, the bottom one is with a zoom lens but it did not really work that well as the time expose was quite long, and even with my little tripod, it did not help as thats steam/gas is moving.

It was a better night tonight as I did not have to leave when the tour guide wanted to go, there was less people (although not much less) and it was  clear night and the stars were bright and clear. However within 5k of this place, even before I got out of the park, it was pouring rain and stayed that way all the way back to Hilo.