I rented a car (Sebring Convertible) and sunday I was off to the active volcano Kiluaea. A short 100 mile drive – each way…
And to make it even better: When I arrived at the national park hosting the volcano, I was told, that the activities current took place outside the park… and that the road from the park was closed due to recent lava… So it would be a 40 mile detour to get to see flowing lava… And there was no gurantees.
I drove around in the park and saw the crater, lava tunnels (cool!) and off I went, driving another 40 miles and I got to the viewing area. After a 1 km. hilke I arrived at the “visitor center” for viewing lava activity. I have no idea what they consider “seeing” for we were at least 1 km. away from the actual flowing lava… VERY dissapointing. All I could see was the hues on the sky and occasonal red/orange flows into the sea…. NOT what I had expected, but beautiful anyway.
After the “seeing” I went back to the carpark, to find stalls selling phenomenal photos of current (yesterday) activity. Beautiful close-ups. But that required a permit. For security reasons as the volcano can blow up anytime and the lava is pretty warm (1500 degrees Celsius)…
I bought a calendar with nice photos and have also taken a few OK myself.
