Hawaii Part 2 - Lavaing the Big Island

Flying into Kona on the Big Island of Hawaii is one of the more interesting aircraft descents this planet has to offer. It’s not quite up there with descending into the old Hong Kong airport or skipping over the Andes and into Santiago but it’s close.

If you choose the right side of the plane on a good day you get a great view of 5000m high volcanoes and a patch work quilt of old lava flows including the one you land on which is only 30 years old.

That novelty was lost on the kids who began screaming for food the moment we landed...
...(nothing new there of course) but it took an hour to find change for the phone (porters to the rescue again), have our contact in town not answer, get the minibus to the car rental, be upgraded to a Ford Fusion (a rebadged Falcon so much better than a Jeep Patriot) and leave the airport.

We were lucky to get some inside knowledge on a suitable family friendly diner to go to for lunch where we began to get familiar with the huge number of menu options these places offer – 10 types of burger and hot dog for starters and a whole range of ‘plates’ (meals).

American Food Surprise No 4: They really know their condiments. Apart from tomato and barbeque sauce there’s always a full range of steak sauces, soy sauces, mustards (though no hot English), pickles and chilli in various styles.

Taking the easy option the 3yo had another hot dog which revived him sufficiently to start inspecting the diner in detail, including the fire alarm which he triggered to the great amusement of nobody. With the 1yo screaming and the locals preparing to run for their lives one of the staff coolly wandered over with a key and turned it off – maybe that sort of thing happens all the time there. Sufficiently embarrassed we left a good tip and headed to our accommodation.

The Big Island is much cheaper than Honolulu so we could afford a real apartment in Kaillua-Kona, a whole floor of a big blue house (no bear though – people with kids may get that reference) with its own lanai (balcony). No air con but we were getting used to that and also came across a reason for it. It’s practical and environmental. While the Big Island has plenty of water thanks to the volcanoes acting like a cloud scoop and the lava acting like a sponge, they have power problems and all the power plants run on imported gas. Surprisingly they have very little thermal power.

So while the kids caught up on Dora the Explorer and the Upside Down Show (an Australian kids show on cable in the US) I went and organised my dive trips for the following day.

Maybe it was because I chose to dive with a cowboy (not a real one, he didn’t dive with a six-shooter on a horse), maybe it was the time of year, maybe it was climate change or maybe I was unlucky, but the dolphins didn’t show for my first dive as promised and the Manta Rays didn’t show for the famous night dive. All the dives were good though, lots of eels and fish (loved the inquisitive trumpet fish and the baracuda), an octopus and a large eagle ray, but the star of the show was the lava and especially the lava tubes making for a fairly technical dive near the old airport. Lots of swim-throughs and caves to explore reminiscent of the coral sea, though maybe not quite that scale and no sharks (which is not necessarily a good thing).

From Kaillua we headed across the lava fields of the Big Island’s hot and dry desert-like western half (the Kona coast). Some nice beaches, but when you’re a spoilt Aussie who’s travelled much of Asia and the Pacific it’s only just nice. Checked out Hapuna Beach, supposedly the best of Kona’s beaches, but it’s just more nice than the others.

The 3yo liked it though, once he’d finished tantrumming after being woken up mid-sleep, a recurring problem associated with islands so small that almost everything is only a half sleep away for an infant or toddler. In some respects it would have been better if there was less to do in Hawaii so we could drive further to get to the sites worth seeing and ensure the kiddies woke up at their own pace.

The best tantrum was to come though.



Waipio Valley - a picture, not a postcard

Also checked out the Waipio Valley. This was the first time we’d crossed to the Big Island’s east (or Hilo) coast. No island could be so schizophrenic. The Hilo coast is as wet, green, humid and tropical as the Kona coast is dry and dusty. The only thing they have in common is the heat. Almost the second you cross to the western side you encounter forests, drizzling rain, crops and green fields full of livestock.

The Waipio Valley is at the northern end of the Hilo coast. The picture postcard black sand beach lies at the end of a valley bordered by incredibly steep sides where access is only via a road so steep (up to 25% in part) only four-wheel drives are permitted. It’s also a tsunami funnel and the island’s handful of native taro farmers get wiped out every hundred years or so.

Translation: "If a tsumami comes here you're dead

Indeed Hawaii is a tsunami magnet being positioned smack bang in the middle of the active volcanic zones of the Pacific, and being one itself. Much of the Hawaiian cost has signs indicating where your tsunami evacuation points are and there are loud speakers positioned all over the islands’ residential areas like air raid sirens. They scream out “you’re all going to die, you’re doomed” just before the waves hit.

Most tourists ignore the tsunami warning signs and walk instead into the Waipio Valley (and if they’re fit enough and don’t have small children in tow walk out too). What takes most tourists 20 minutes took us 60, but at least the 3yo and his Dad with toddler on his back again made it to the valley floor with plenty of rest stops. But then in a pattern to be repeated for much of the trip the 3yo gave up the ghost, so Mum took the back pack and the 3yo climbed up on my shoulders for the 10minute walk to the beach (which was actually mostly large black boulders and viciously pounding surf – these things look much more serene from 1000ft up).

Walking back up wasn’t an option. Fortunately we were rescued by Jen and Jeffrey from Smalltownsville Arkansas. Jen and Jeff had perfect teeth, were on their honeymoon and were childhood sweethearts. They were so nice you’d swear they’d walked off the set of a sitcom where outrageous comedy is made from the fact that Jeff has called out Jen’s best friend’s name in the heat of passion but it’s all a hilarious misunderstanding (the friend’s name is Gen) and they live happily ever after. Until the meat cleaver incident…

Anyway, the following day we did the Saddleback road which links the two coasts via a pass between two 5000m high volcanoes. The Kona side is steep and winding and a lot of fun (though less fun in a fully loaded automatic car). Let’s hope they never ‘improve’ the road which they’re doing on the Hilo side, turning it into a four-lane highway. This probably has something to do with the large army base and its airport on the plain between the volcanoes.

Mauna Loa and the Saddleback Rd (down there somewhere)

The volcanoes themselves though are breathtaking, and that’s not just because of the altitude. We even caught occasional glimpses of the observatories on the top of Mauna Kea (the sparkling white observatories make for half a teeth missing grin) when the clouds briefly cleared and on one occasion while on the edge of the Kilauea volcano crater I saw both the peaks of Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea at the same time.

Because of the observatories at the top of Mauna Kea there is a sealed road most of the way to the summit, though kids under 12 shouldn’t go above about 2,500m. So the information centre was as close as we got, plus a 15 minute dash with 3yo on shoulders to the top of a nearby cinder cone. Worth the effort though as the weather was perfect and the views of Mauna Loa across the saddle were spectacular (though not as spectacular alas as they would have been from the summit).

Another tantrum melt down on the way down the volcano (“Wake up baby” is not a romantic honeymooner’s plea but a 3yo’s way of torturing his family in the noisy confines of a vehicle) and we finally made it to Hilo where we discovered the odd 1984 Orwellian world of the KTA Superstore.

The KTA Superstore in Hilo is a shrine to its founders Koichi & Taniyo Taniguchi (yes, I had to look it up). Their two metre tall photos overlord the supermarket Tiananmen Square style. It’s a full Asian shrine and encompasses their slogan ‘to humbly serve the people of our community’. Under their watchful gaze you contemplate a bewildering choice of dozens of varieties of everything. All that you want is there, it’s just hidden amongst hundreds of things you don’t (like live lobsters, 10 varieties of peanut-butter, maple syrup imitations, and grape jellies (jams)), except chicken breasts which for some reason are hard to find in Hawaii. It was there I bought American bacon.

Feeding the fishes (who live on a diet of bread
thrown by tourists) in the backyard

Got back to the car just in time for another toddler meltdown and headed to our converted fisherman’s shack an hour out of Hilo in a gated community (including dedicated tsunami alert system) near a village wiped out by lava 30 years ago. Our rather luxurious shack (including 200 satellite TV channels with nothing worth watching) had its own breakwater and tidal pool. While the waves of the Pacific smashed against it, inside we had tropical fish, crabs and coral of our own to swim amongst and feed bread to. Kind of put our crappy little fish pond in the backyard at home into perspective. Each day we’d swim with the fishes. Feeding time at the zoo now meant more than sweeping up the spaghetti from the floor and the yoghurt off the walls after another kiddie dinner-time tantrum.

From our beach shack we explored volcanoes, lava and waterfalls and I ate my bacon.

American Food Surprise No 5: American bacon is crunchy and delicious, but boy is it fatty. An uncooked rasher is about 20cm long and 4 cm thick. When cooked it’s about a fifth of that. Cook three of them and you end up with a frypan with a centimetre deep of oily pig fat in it, which incidentally is perfect for frying eggs in.

Most tourists to the Big Island do day trips from Honolulu and most of their time they spend at Volcanoes National Park which is just outside the town of Volcano (they also go to the Macadamia Nut farm down the road). The National Park is not named after the town.

Kilauea: lava free for 30 years (but don't tell the tourists)

Kilauea is the most famous of all Hawaii’s volcanoes because it’s the most active. Or at least it was 50 years ago. It’s a myth perpetuated by all those with a vested interest myth that you’ll see lava if you go to Kilauea though up until a few years ago you could visit flowing lava from other volcanoes many miles away. These days you can’t even do that unless you’re Bear Grylls or you’re a villager and own the land the lava flows through. Nonetheless the National Park trades on this reputation, boldly promoting images of lava spurting tens of metres into the air taken in the 1960s and photos of flowing lava from near to Kilauea taken in the 1980s. Also, much of the famous Crater Rim Drive has been closed to traffic for years because the active part of Kilauea is still spewing sulphur fumes in its general direction (but not lava).

Still, what there is of the Crater Rim Drive to do is pretty good. Lots of steam vents and lookouts, a large steam plume (the one that affects the drive) and the crater itself which is impressive because of its scale if nothing else. It’s huge.

Look closely enough and you can see Bear Gryll's camerman's footprints

Road built under lava flow

The other main attraction of the National Park is the Chain of Craters Road which passes by 18 or so other smaller craters, extensive old lava flows crossing roads, and impressive views of distant lava fields and the lava strewn coast line. The road also includes a large lava tube which the 3yo loved (he’s into tunnels as well as fans) including a section you can explore yourself if you take a torch, but why this isn’t promoted or mentioned in any guide book, or why they don’t sell or hire torches at the National Park office or the entrance to the tube is a great mystery.

Indeed much of the Hawaiian tourist industry is a mystery, especially in regards to infrastructure, for while tourism is the State’s biggest industry (probably, though maybe military spending is bigger) outside of Oahu and the places that package and resort tourists can do day trips to things such as signage, roads, facilities, information, accommodation and even places to eat can be lacking. As big as tourism is in Hawaii it could potentially be much bigger if it better catered and promoted itself to a larger range of tourists. There is no reasonable way for example that a backpacker could afford to visit or get around the Big Island and even just driving our own car around we were amazed at how little car parking there was in places, how few interpretive signs there were and how rickety many of the fences were (it wouldn’t take much for a 3yo to fall into Kilauea – or be pushed!).

The suspicion is that much of this is related to the general economic malaise affecting much of Hawaii (and the USA for that matter). Tourist investment requires money and there isn’t much of that around. There was no escaping the shanty towns on Oahu’s west cost or the occasional raw sewerage wafts reminiscent of underdeveloped Asian countries. Numerous ‘hikes’ and ‘walks’ existed in name only in guide books as they’ve fallen into disuse or been taken over by hunters and most unsealed roads were unpassable except by the monsterest of trucks. Indeed before the invention of the ubiquitous ABC shops, which are found on every street corner in Waikiki and many other street corners anywhere tourists go, you have to wonder where tourists went to buy supplies of sunscreen, hats, nappies and especially alcohol.

American Food Surprise No 6: You can get good American beer (avoid the brands you've heard of or anything light or lite), it's sold in Supermarkets (like KTA) and corner stores (like ABC), it's cheap (even the microbrews are about $18 for a 12 pack if the Aussie dollar stays strong) and it's potent (around 6%). Pick of the bunch was Longboard Lager brewed in Kona, the only local brewer, but ESP and Sierra Pale Ale were good too.
So it was no surprise that we found out about the trek to the lava flowing into the ocean not from any tour guide or National Park information booth but from the only other Australians we met on the Big Island (another couple travelling with a toddler fuelled on emergency vegemite sandwiches). Admittedly to get there you had to go outside the National Park to the remnants of Kapaahu, a village wiped out by lava flows 20 years ago (yes, it does a happen a lot around there) at the end of the road and cross village land on an unofficial tour ‘guided’ by locals.

A rare Hawaiian non-famous surf spot

We’d already been to that spot the previous day. There’s a few shacks and a café at what is now the end of the road (it wasn’t 20 years ago) and a walk across the lava field to a black sand beach that would be even more spectacular if the local villagers hadn’t already started planting coconut palms. But it’s their land and they have to make a living. It all seemed pretty innocuous while we were there. Even the 3yo who was tantrumming so hard we had to restrain him in his brother’s stroller while he thrashed about and his head and eyeballs spun like a scene out of the Exorcist or Poltergeist, if there was a ceiling he would have crawled along it, couldn’t disturb the serenity. As we found out from the other Aussie couple we were there too early in the day. The lava tours are promoted from mid-afternoon. So I went back the following afternoon and signed up.

Turns out the tours are only four months old which is when the lava started flowing into the ocean again after a hiatus of many years. No wonder the locals are cashing in while it lasts.

By the time we set off at 6pm there were 29 people in my group, a mix of mostly honeymooning Americans and Europeans. It was a 2mile, 3km walk across the lava fields to the lava itself with occasional distant clifftop views of a red glow from a mile away. Within a few hundred metres the ground started warming up where an earlier flow existed a month earlier, and within 100 metres there was the occasional red glow coming from cracks in the ground. Within 30 metres we occasionally got splashed by sea spray as warm as a hot shower and when the steam cleared got views of lava being pounded by surf and occasionally splashing it back tens of metres. From 20 metres (as close as the guides dared) my feet were getting quite hot (this was one week old land) and you could hear the lava fizzing and spitting as it hit the water and feel the heat on your face like looking into an open oven.

A coconut tree plantation (eventually)

It made for dozens of fuzzy photos and lots of blurry videos. But eventually I just put the camera away and enjoyed the highlight of Hawaii and to be brutally honest the only real reason to go.

The other interesting thing about Kapaahu is that it is the heart of the Hawaiian independence movement. Hawaii has only been a US state for a little over 50 years and before that was, depending on who you talk to, a US protectorate, a sovereign state, and a British colony (the Union Jack is still in the corner of the flag which the pro-independence locals like to fly upside down). Legally it’s all very murky with Hawaii twice being given governance of its own affairs by US courts and elections (probably unofficial) held for a Government with a Prime Minister that exists today in name only and at times in exile or in jail. Hawaiians on a whole probably don’t want independence. As economically disadvantaged as the State is at the moment it would probably turn into another Pacific banana republic if it ran its own affairs. And the reality is that the US military probably have a say in the matter and they ain’t going nowhere.

Indeed one of the surprising things about Hawaii is how strong the indigenous community is especially away from the cities. While clearly Hawaii is Polynesian with a proud islander history, to most of us it’s a US state with all that implies. So the fact that for many of the locals English is a second language and their English skills are very poor should not distract from the fact that only package tourists and locals performing for tourists wear leis.

After the lava everything else paled in comparison. Saw a big waterfall which was nice and drove along an extremely scenic road which we couldn’t stop on because the kids were sleeping, a rare event and one not to be ruined by something as trivial as a photo opportunity of an idyllic black sand beach surrounded by towering black cliffs and rainforest. Sob.