Kilauea Volcano

Here's a REALLY short video of the volcano eruption that we saw, taken with my little trusty Canon Ixus. It took a 3 mile hike (and 2 hours) to get where we were standing. By the time we trekked there (7:30pm) it was DARK! And that's when the glow would show. All we could hear was the wind in our ears and the hissing of the lava drooling into the sea. It was incredible watching new land being formed.

If you click on this photo, in the centre, you can barely make out a man walking dangerously close to an open hole with molten lava. That would take another hour's hike and we were NOT gonna try that! *phew*


In fact, we started out early! Got to the Chain of Craters Road at 3pm and did some interesting stops before we finally arrived at the parking area at 5:30pm. The choice lots were already taken! You can see the long row of cars parked on one side of the road.


Ranger station said that sunset was 7:25pm. We hiked across lava for about 2 hours as the sun slowly set.


We were tired by 6:45pm and we stopped for dinner(chicken wraps) at a mile marker. The salad kept blowing away in the wind so we didn't eat that. Mag didn't want to continue the hike but I insisted that we should go on. Somebody came back and said they saw the volcano flowing into the sea and that gave us the added incentive to push on.

The sunset was beautiful and we watched the plume in the distance.


By 7:30pm, we made it to the rope that said "Do Not Enter! Area Closed", but everyone was just going under the ropes. So we did too. When it got really dark, we decided to stop and just gawk at the lava drooling and hissing while it hit the ocean. It was spectacular! Better than a fireworks show anytime.

There was a little boy lost that night. Wonder why he was running around without a flash light! We figured that he must've been a naughty boy to begin with, so serves him right! Ha! Anyway, he was found and went home even before we did!

If we thought it was hard work walking across lava during the day, try it at night! Close your eyes and THAT would be how it was there in the lava field - pitch black. We had our huge torch lights but the darkness engulfed us and almost swallowed us up! At times we would find ourselves riiight on the edge of a ledge and have to turn around to look for a better path. Can be dangerous if you're hasty. However, you look up and the stars were heavenly!! It felt like we were in an Omni-theatre becos the ENTIRE sky was just littered with twinkly stars! Our necks were aching craning from right to left just to take in as many stars as we could.



All in all, a fantastic adventure! Got back to our B&B at 11pm!!

There are two kinds of lava - Pahoehoe is smooth and easier to walk on.
A'a is ragged & sharp and looks like rich bulldozed farm land but actually is not. How hot the lava flow is will determine whether it becomes Pahoehoe or A'a.

Pahoehoe is formed when the lava is very hot with high viscosity :


A'a really kills your shoes as the crunchy surface cuts into the soles :