I woke early and a bit chilly and with a crick in my neck. A poor combination. Lying around wasn't going to fix it nor was getting up but I chose the latter and decided to explore the camp beyond the tarmac path. Surprisingly, it's mostly the same except away fromthe road there are five or six more `official' camp sites -- a picnic table plus a bounded gravel pitch. I'm not sure how many there were as I lost my bearings. Stumbling again on the camp I forced Helen out of bed as the sun was beginnign to burn. The tent was wet from dew so we decided to leave it to dry in the sun.
We headed straight out to Volcano village for some breakfast at the Lava Rock Cafe where we filled up (US$2.25 a (US) gallon, ouch) before heading back into the park to do the Crater Rim Drive. First stop after the visitor centre is the steaming vents, a mini Craters of the Moon-like experience. The sulphur deposits were a pale lime green colour so maybe it wasn't sulphur. 
We passed by the steaming bluff but didn't venture further as we couldn't see much and didn't see the point.
The next stop was Kilauea overlook. We stepped up to the fence and, wow! That's a big hole in the ground. The sense of astonishment was echoed by just about everybody that pulled up. The caldera (a really big crater is called a caldera) isn't circular but is best described as such with steep rocky walls 500ft down into a mostly flat plain. The far side, covered with trees -- such is the climate diversity, this side is a desert the other rainforest -- is two miles away!
Two miles away and we're looking over the narrow bit. It's three miles across the other way. The floor of this jaw droppingly big hole is the lava cap on top of the active vent. In days gone by this used to be several lava pools which would receive many visitors from the early 19th century on. Mark Twain visited and wrote about what he saw [in his book, Roughing It] (doubtless more elegantly than I). Previously, one presumes, especially given the all over frozen lava surface the whole thing was a big bubbly lava pool. That would be quite a sight.
In the meanwhile, the caldera is visually dominated by Halema'uma'u crater, a mere one by half a mile crater dropping another 500ft down. 
Halema'uma'u, by legend the home of Pele godess of volcanoes, fire, etc. etc., is also the site of most large activity in the caldera. `Dry' now, it used to merrily boil, rising, falling, overflowing into the caldera. Quite a show until 1924 when too much water hit the magma tube and everything went poof!
We skip the Jaggar Museam to try to see what we can before the weather turns. We stop at the southwest rift. This is a large crack in the ground here, the rift heading off into the sea even if the crack doesn't go all the way. It does have the Great Crack at the seaward end, though we can't see that.
The next big thing is Kilauea Iki, a Halema'uma'u sized crater off the end of the caldera. A crater for some time, in 1959 a `curtain of fire' 5-10m high erupted along the south rim filling the crater with 414ft of lava before the curtain `shrank' to a single fountain 1900ft high. The fountain spewed an entire new hill of pumice, Pu'u Puai, Eruption Hill. After the fountain stopped the lava lake found a plughole and partially drained leaving a high lava mark or bath mark around the edge of the crater. There are trails across both the caldera and Kilauea Iki even though the lava is still molten a couple of miles below.
A very popular spot with tourists is Thurston Lava tube, a lit lava tube which you can amble through but be none the wiser about lava other than it runs through tubes. There's an unlit section which is broadly the same but very dark. Having ventured a long way (probably only 150 of the 300+m) I pressed the wrong button on my camcorder and it flashed up an error [to do with] the flash. Oh dear. Maybe I haven't used that function, accidentally or by design, since it fell off the game truck in South Llongwe, Zambia.
We went back to Hilo to buy more films -- doubtless not the last -- before trying to secure some accomodation. Dolphin Bay is full, bugger, so we drive back out and try the Seaview. No Vacancies says the sign. Helen decides to go in anyway and comes out with a room booked for two nights. Well done! We book our last night on the Big Island at Manago as well, just to be sure. I don't want a long chase around again.
The plan is to try to capture lava in low light in the hope of capturing some real colours in my case and glow in Helen's. Time is running short so we duck into a McDonalds. Internally they have a big poster announcing a bingo session for an hour a week. Looking round there are a few old folks in here. Back up the long slog from Hilo to the park -- only 28 miles but we've done it so many times now. We stop halfway down and pick up and pack neatly the tent. I may still have a cricked neck but it saved us three night's accomodation.
Sadly the lava doesn't quite do the do for me. Helen's results will appear in a few weeks (or less!). A final detour back to towards the campsite to capture a fallen log that looks like a dragon's head sticking out of a bush that rushes at you round some tight corners. Back to Hilo to try to write journals and, in my case, go to sleep.
Hilo Seaside Hotel, Hilo, Big Island N19.72373 W155.06244 Elev. 40m!
Copyright 2003 Ian Fitchet. All rights reserved.