Day 2 took us towards the North of the island hitting Rainbow Falls and the Boiling Pots before heading up the 13,000 and Maunaloa. Rainbow falls is only a 15 minute drive from the port, so nice and close by. See this one in the morning to get the full rainbow experience. Another five minutes up the road and you get to what they call, the boiling pots. Not really boiling but with the way the waterfalls hit the water it has the illusion of boiling water - definitely worth the visit. Both these are very close to the parking lot. From here we started our drive up towards the 13,000 foot observatory at the top of Mount Maunaloa. This is a a very narrow two way road full of twists and turns and ups and downs, kind of like a roller coaster. When someone approaches you from the opposite direction, one of you will need to pull off, there are many areas to do this. If you are prone to car or motion sickness, this may not be a great idea for you. Well we climbed and climbed and at every thousand feet of elevation there would be a spray painted number on the road, 7,000, 8,000, 9,000 etc. The only problem was that when we passed the 9,000 foot marker at about 9,500 feet, the road abruptly ended with about 15 feet high of lava covering the road. There was a sign here indicating that this lava was from a 2022 eruption, we found out later that it was November 2022, only a few months ago, wow. I’m sure that it was still hot at the bottom of that layer of lava. We ran into a cyclist up there, him and his wife drove up, obviously hoping to get to the top, where he was going to cycle down - now that looks like fun. We stopped ahead of him and was able to get a couple of pics of him on his bike heading down from this turnaround point. So although disappointed that we could not pass this point this was pretty exciting to see such a current result of an eruption. From here we drove back down the narrow windy road and over to the other volcano, Maunakea again getting to about 9,200 feet before hitting the visitor centre. There is a posted Park Ranger here checking your vehicle for any further climbing, non four wheel drive vehicles cannot pass this point. This has to do with the steepness of the terrain combined by gravel sections that require this extra level of vehicle capacity. They have a decent visitor centre full of history, old telescopes, star maps, apparel including a short film on some of the evolution of the mountain. No restaurant or cafe here if you are planning a lunch at this point in your day.
From here, we headed back down to the seaside for a scenic coastal drive on our way to the Akaka falls, we made a quick stop at the botanical gardens for a photo op. The Akaka falls are magnificent as they are twice the height of Niagara Falls, obviously not as wide but impressive just the same. Here it is five dollars per person, paid by credit card at the machine. Plan for about an hour to comfortably complete the loop walk. On the way back to the airport and returning the car we made two more quick stops, one at the public library and then at the museum. The library holds the stone that if anyone can lift it they will be king, this is located just outside the library doors. Good luck to anyone that could lift this massive stone. The building beside the museum is written as the oldest house in Hilo, so worth the photo stop indeed.
We had a nice quick return of the car and took a five dollar a head shuttle back to the ship for a very nice sail away from our last Hawaiian port. I ran into and had a nice chat with Marcus Winter on the cruise out, he is a guest entertainer and does amazing art using sand and a light board. Marcus is from New Zealand and I was fortunate enough to hear him play the conch shell at sunset as we sailed away, a nice touch at the end of this wonderful Hawaiian adventure.
A few pics of our last day here in Hawaii, hope you enjoy…
With Shore Excursion Manager, Alex
Beautiful rainbow falls
Fan palm
Jan letting us know where to next
Lava, lava everywhere
The end of the road
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