Hawai'i Vacation- Day 6- multiple stops

My last day in Hawai'i was really full.  I wasn't sure if I was going to get everything in that I wanted to do.  So I decided to go to the place that open first.  That was the Macadamia Nut Farm.  All very interesting.  The first pictures shows what a macadamia tree looks like.  The second is was the nut look likes on the tree and the third when it falls in the ground.  The nut is not ready to be harvested until it falls to the ground.  There is a soft outer shell that easily comes off.  Then they are collected from the ground and they go through a device to break the shell.  It takes 300lbs per square inch of pressure to break it.  Learned a bunch here and bought even more nuts.  

Next stop was the Pana'ewa Rainforest Zoo.  Saw a few animals I have never seen.

Some type of pheasant and its counter part (below)

Ant Eaters

 Next was the Akaka Falls.

 Next was a drive to my next location.  I stopped for lunch and took a few pictures.

Found a cool antique shop with tons of bottles in the windows. "Glass from the past."

"Glass from the past"

Glass from the Past

 Next was to the World Botanical Gardens and Waterfalls.
On the way to some of the falls were a lot of cows.  This one seemed...angry.

Tree with spikes growing out of it, aloe leaf in place for effect.

Rainbow Tree.  So cool, really these colors.

 The reason for going to these gardens was for the zip lines.  There were 9 of them.  I spent a couple hours zipping through the gardens over streams and valleys getting also a nice narrated tour of plants from the guides.  This last one was the longest of the lines and also two side by side.  So you could race.  The guide took a few pictures of me so I could show of my awesome zip lining skills.  It was fun.

 After zip lining I had some time to kill and stopped a few parks along the way.

Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic Cemetery in Papaikou, Hawai'i.

Lots of these types of arrangements seen throughout Hawai'i.

Just had an awesome day and good time over all in Hawai'i.  I was happy to end on a good note.  It was great to go somewhere and enjoy every part of it.  There was just so much to do and see, so many natural wonders here.  There wasn't any hanging out baking on some hot sandy beach every day on a resort.  It was full of adventure, sweat, hiking, blistered feet, nature, exploration and learning; learning about Hawai'i and also a few things about myself.  And each day I came back to my bed exhausted and spent.  It was good.

Hawai'i Vacation- Day 5- Waipi'o Valley and an afternoon drive

So on this day I tried out riding a horse.  There were many horses with strange Hawaiian names...thank goodness mine was just "Sally."  Any way Waipi'o Valley was very beautiful.  Way back when people first started living here the only was in was by canoe.  Now there is a super steep drive that you need 4wheel drive to get in and out of it.  Only a handful of people live down there.  When there are Tsunami warnings the whole valley evacuates.  A few times the valley has been totally destroyed and flooded.

Overview of the Valley

My horse "Sally"

Me and Sally

The rest of the afternoon I took a drive through the middle of the Island and found a few geocaches.  It was probably one of the best times of the whole trip.  Going from beach to valley to rain forest to hills to mountains in the clouds all in one afternoon and then back again all ending with a magnificent sunset.  

Very satisfied

  

Hawai'i Vacation- Day 4 Volcanoes National Park

The forth day I rented a car and headed over to Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park.  There was so much to do there.  I thought this might be a morning ordeal, I was blown away.  Here is a map 1 (map 2) of the park to give you and idea about how big this park is and how large the craters are.  I spend the day driving from one end of the park to next taking in all there was to see.  

The first place I stopped was at the steam vents ( a description you will see a few picture down.)

steam vents

 This is Halema'uma'u Crater.  It is always giving off lots of steam.  There is even a webcam.  Can't see it good from this picture but this crater has another crater inside of it.  It used to be a big lava lake until 1942 it erupted and emptied out. It is crazy big.

 The picture below is a lava tube.  Pretty strange that at one time there was hot lava traveling through here.

 This is a smaller crater Kīlauea Iki (below).  You can't see it but there are people down there walking along a trail.

This used to be a tree that is now covered in lava.

Found this on a hike.

The darker areas are the most recent lava flows

Went into the road

My rental car

Holei Sea Arch

Self Portrait

 Took a little hike to some petroglyphs.

Halema'uma'u Crater at night, you can see it glowing.  

In the end, this day was just so cool.  I would have loved to go a few more hike had time allowed.

Hawai'i Vacation- Day 3- part 2 Mauna Kea

After the lesson from the Tsunami Museum I went on another guided tour this time to Mauna Kea.  Mauna Kea is the tallest mountain in the Hawaiian chains, also the tallest volcano in the world, 13,796ft.   It is considered a dormant shield volcano for about 4-5,000 years now.   

View from 9,000ft.  Stopped at this point to let our bodies adjust to the altitude for about 30 minutes.  

 The road up, officially above some clouds.

 Close to the summit

Because of Mauna Kea's altitude it is a great place for star gazing and star watching.  Among many telescopes and astronomical observatories, the worlds largest mirror is here, Keck Telescope.

The terrain is much like that of the moon.  In fact, they tested some of the equipment here that was later used on the moon.  

 Pathway to the summit.  It doesn't look like it but the wind is whipping by and it really hits you hard after making that turn to the right up that slope.  On the way up to the summit the wind was so strong (40m/hr) I was having trouble walking.  

View from the summit.  It was cold and windy with poor visibility this day.  There was no star gazing that night.

Within minutes of getting there, it turned into a full blown blizzard...the rangers were asking all visitors to head back due to the weather.

Pretty crazy that only a few miles away is the Ocean and the weather is 70's F.  I had to laugh because I saw a pick up truck with the back full of snow on its way down.  Apparently a common past time is to have snowball fights on the beach.

Another historical fact provided by the tour guide.  Back in the day this mountain was considered so sacred that if you were not a native of the island you were not allowed to even go on the mountain.    

Hawai'i Vacation- Day 3-Tsunami Museum

Taken near the Tsunami Museum

The third day I had some time to kill before my tour to Mauna Kea...I figured I would go somewhere the bus could take me since it was free.   So to the Tsunami Museum is was.

So here is a little about Tsunamis:
 What is a Tsunami?  There are a few different types but in Hawai'i they are caused by earthquakes from other parts of the world.  As you can see in the graph, Hawai'i is very prone to Tsumanis. If there is an Earthquake (not sure the exact magnitude) in any of coast lines around Hawai'i it is only a matter of hours before Hawai'i is hit with a couple of deadly waves. They can travel up to 500m/hr.
On April 1, 1946 in Alaska there was an earthquake, the Hawaiians were notified but many thought it was an April fools joke...killing 159 people and destroying much of the town.  Not only do people just drown, they get hit by the debris in the water including cars and buses.
It had been quite some time since the last Tsunami that no one really even knew what one was or what to expect even if they had taken it seriously. Lack of knowledge played a big part in the deaths of these people.  For surfers...they went out to catch that big wave.  For most others it just mere curiosity that brought them in the danger zone.  At points between the waves the water is actually sucked back out to sea leaving the fish flopping around on the ocean bottom, which I imagine is quite a scene to see.  People went out to collect those fish only to be hit by the next big wave.  Since then they have relocated all of the residents who lived in the Tsunami Zone and most of those areas are now large parks and beaches and the businesses are farther inland.  Also, now there is an official warning system in place, including sirens stationed all over the island, giving the residents of Hawai'i warning to get out of the Tsunami zone in time.
The lady at the museum said in Feb, 2010 there was earthquake in Chili and they did evacuate the Tsunami Zone in Hilo, fortunately the waves only ended up being 4ft by the time it got there only causing minimal damage on the coastal parks and beaches with no casualties.  I also learned that even if the Tsunami hits on one side of the island the opposite side is still effected, it somehow wraps around.  And strangely if you are on your boat like 10 miles out you can't even tell a Tsunami is going by.