Day 7: Volcano National Park - Grampies Go Hawaiian Winter 2014 - CycleBlaze

November 23, 2014

Day 7: Volcano National Park

The national park here is centred (or perched) around the Kilauea Caldera, which is the miles across crater that resulted from the earliest eruptions of the volcano. The crater was not blown open, as might be supposed, but is the result of collapse after so much magma erupted. Within the caldera is a further crater, called Halema'ua'u. On the caldera rim there is Volcano House, a luxury hotel with a panoramic view, the Jaggar Museum, the park visitor centre, and stuff like that. All kinds of fascinating trails run across the area, which has the volcanic features and also forest and flowers to appreciate. Of course there are many books on all aspects of the place, and there is enough here to spend weeks prowling and hiking around.

We had been here, without bikes, in 1988 and 2006, and so had a good idea of what we would like to do now for a few days. But clearly we had lost touch a bit. One main activity was to be cycling the circle route around the caldera - the Crater Rim Drive. In 2006 we had driven around the caldera multiple times, and hiked across it diagonally. So that was the plan now but...

No way this time. Just as we just accidentally learned about the lava heading for Pahoa, we had no idea that in 2008 Halema'ua'u crater had turned into a lava lake, and the darn thing has spewed poison gas, steam, ash, and lava to this day. As a result, the entire end of the caldera near the crater is off limits. The road is closed, the trails on the caldera floor are closed. However, there is a new activity - going to watch the red glow at night, from the caldera rim.

Today, though, we were content to drop by the visitor centre and to wander to Volcano House looking for a hot meal. At the visitor centre we tagged onto a naturalist walk, along a road destroyed by earthquake in 1983, and to the caldera rim. This little walk passed some quick plant highlights - an invasive ginger, the bamboo orchid, the native tree fern, the Koa tree, and the Ohi'a Lehua tree. Of course, I can't repeat the whole presentation here, - but one tidbit - the Ohi'a is named for a handsome warrior who was engaged to a young woman. However Pele, goddess of the volcano, spotted him and wanted him for her own. He refused, and got turned into a gnarled tree. When the young woman found out, she was heartbroken, and other gods, though not wanting to reverse a Pele decision, as least put the woman, Lehua, into the tree as a flower. So now the two are reunited. People should not pick the flowers as Lehua will cry - causing rain.

We also saw on the walk Pele's hair, fine glasslike strands whipped out of the lava lake. There are also blobs, called Pele's tears, we understand.

At Volcano House, $20 brought a Hawaiian sampler plate with poi, pulled pork, and maybe six or eight other items. Very uncharacteristically, I neither photographed nor recorded this. The most likely reason was that we were really starving and just quickly inhaled this expensive and no doubt elegant stuff. Same for Dodie's chicken sate. Then, $38 lighter, we cycled over to a general store that sits within a military base nearby. There we bought cheap and inelegant stuff, like a four pack of cinnamon buns, and some cans of peas. You really can't feed cycists on poi samples and chicken snippets. (If we are still around here on Thursday, by the same token, we are more likely to choose Thanksgiving dinner in the military mess hall for $10 than at Volcano House for $55!

When we returned to the campground we finally encountered a couple that people had been telling us about for a couple of days. These were Cindy and John, the 'till now mythical other Canadian cyclists on the island. Following the same route as us, with a Bob trailer in tow, they are from Calgary. John works in a bike shop and has a fair bit of experience, having crossed Canada, done the Pacific Coast, and cycled in Europe. He is considering the Southern Tier soon, and asked our opinion. You can imagine we had a jolly time comparing notes!

We met several other interesting couples camping here. One was Jason (from Oregon) and his Hawaiian wife, whose many long names he us not even that sure about. These two, rather than hiking, have been enjoying days gathering firewood. Jason made up a fire for us, which is keeping us company even right now.

Here at park headquarters, the Pahoa lava flow is not something you heard about on TV, but a very real day to day thing. So there are printed reports and computer monitors about, with very current updates. The fact is, though, that the lava front has stalled and they are preparing to reopen Pahoa Village Road. So I suggested to Dodie that we still could go stay and cycle in Pahoa. "No way", she replied, "Laurie told us not to take risks with lava". So I dragged Dodie over to a ranger and said "Tell this lady that there is no danger in staying in Pahoa". The ranger replied that most Pahoa owners were not renting now, to avoid the liability of having to evacuate any hapless tourists in case the lava made a sudden move. Then we got given a four page paper entitled "Viewing Hawaii Lava Safely - Common Sense is not Enough". Gee, thanks a lot, ranger!

The campground here has ten cabins that can be rented through Volcano House. Volcano House has also taken over the campsites. Consequently, the camping that used to be free is now $10, still reasonable, and the cabins that were $50 are now $80. Arriving beat last night, a cabin would have been very nice. But the large covered shelter was also pretty luxurious. There were no cabin vacancies yesterday, but there are for tonight and tomorrow night. We jumped on them, even with the high price and the lovely and low cost tenting alternative. Right now, money is worth less to us than babying the knees.

Along the same lines, we are also looking at our route ahead, to see if we can sub in some non-camping where otherwise we had planned to camp. It's a reversal for us to throw away camping prospects, while normally we are always looking for them. But sometimes you just need to be flexible.

The really nice shelter at the National Park main campground. Just beside it are lower cost ($10 vs $15) hiker/biker sites
Heart 0 Comment 0
Warning sign of the day, #1
Heart 0 Comment 0
Lots of volcano update dvds and volcano materials at the visitor centre
Heart 0 Comment 0
More visitor centre books
Heart 0 Comment 0
The nene - native goose that is somehow related to the Canada goose. This photo is from a photo.
Heart 0 Comment 0
We have a plan to buy out the book store and ship it home from the Volcano town post office.
Heart 0 Comment 0
The red line shows the portion of our planned route that is barred by poison gas.
Heart 0 Comment 0
The unique native tree fern
Heart 0 Comment 0
The earthquake damaged road. There was a magma induced medium strong earthquake here this morning.
Heart 0 Comment 0
The Koa tree, unique to here and neknowned for its hard wood and two distinct kinds of leaf on the same tree.
Heart 0 Comment 0
The bamboo orchid
Heart 0 Comment 0
Kilauea caldera with the Halemaumau crater steamng in the distance
Heart 0 Comment 0
From a remote camera, a look into the lava lake
Heart 0 Comment 0
Our park naturalist, Jilisa Milner
Heart 0 Comment 0
The view from Volcano House
Heart 0 Comment 0
At Volcano House, a group jams on the ukele
Heart 0 Comment 0
An update on the gas plumes from the two eruption sites
Heart 0 Comment 0
Clouds above the lava lake
Heart 0 Comment 0
Warning sign of the day #2
Heart 0 Comment 0
Time to snap up real estate in Pahoa?
Heart 0 Comment 0
The Ohia Lehua flower
Heart 0 Comment 0
Jason spent the day collecting firewood, and kindly set a fire for us at our new cabin. The wood here is alll tropical hardwood, so like mesquite should be good for BBQ. All we have to do is find a steak, instead of noodles and more noodles!
Heart 0 Comment 0

Today's ride: 12 km (7 miles)
Total: 180 km (112 miles)

Rate this entry's writing Heart 0
Comment on this entry Comment 0