We were scheduled to go on a helicopter flight around the volcano this morning, unfortunately because we are now staying at Waikoloa it was a 2 hour drive to get to the helicopter then a further 10 minutes ride before we saw any lava flow. Unfortunately when we got there although they booked us in, we watched the safety video and they walked us to the heliport, there was a issue and we didn’t actually have a ride on the helicopter! After some discussion it seemed that although all the emails said we were booked on the 11:00 flight the ‘computer said’ we were on the 3pm flight! After some negotiation and a bit of a discount we agreed that we would come back for the afternoon flight and re-worked our day. We left the airport and set off for Rainbow falls, these are quite close to Hilo and very easy to get to, they are quite big falls plunging into a large pool, we decided to have lunch at the falls which was nice, then decided to head to Hilo which is a historic town and again not very far away. We parked the car then walked up and down the Main Street. This area seems to have been built around 1920 and the buildings have a very distinctive 1920s feel. We walked the whole town which isn’t very big, then stopped for an ice cream before heading back to the airport. This time we had a seat on the helicopter and before we knew it we were taking off. The flight was great although we didn’t have a front seat this time but all the same we got quite a good view, we flew over the island towards the volcano area and although it was quite a way off we could see the orange plumes that was the eruption. Then we flew along the coast and could see the lava flow slowly crawling along and eventually hitting the sea. Where it entered the sea the water was really green which apparently is the sulphar escaping into the sea. We did a few circuits of the lava fields then unfortunately it was time to leave so before we went back to the airport we flew over a number of waterfalls that cant be accessed easily from the ground then it was time to head back to the airport. The whole experience was stunning, it would have been nice if we could have got a bit closer to the volcano but I understand why we couldn’t. We decided to drive back across Saddle Road which is the road that runs across the middle of the island and runs between the two highest volcano peaks on the island, both of which have not erupted for quite some time. Unfortunately as you climb you enter the cloud so you don’t actually get a very good view but you do see some definitely extinct volcano cones some are still circular others you can see once exploded as all that is left is the ring. We finally got back to the hotel about 6pm so after a quite drink in the room we went for something to eat then came back to the room to update the website and collapse into bed.
