Big Island Attractions 2

Part 1 of Rides Here - Part 2 of Rides Here - Part 1 of Attractions Here

Felt like there’s just too many things to showcase in one post otherwise. Moderately enjoying this new style of travel of “not only biking”. Something to send to the patent office perhaps.

Kilauea Iki Trail + Nahuku-Thurston Lava Tube

Saw these attractions while doing my bike ride around the park and decided to come back and hike a bit since I had the luxury of a car.

Entrance to the tube. It's very short. There's lots of trails and hikes you can do in the park. Lots of awesome flowers and endemic birds like the Apapane!

Inside the tube. They turn the lights off at 8pm if you want to do it totally in the dark. For some reason.

It's short and right on the way, definitely check it out. The lava makes so many interesting textures on the walls.

Kilauea Iki crater is right next to Kilauea. I guess it's not active anymore so they feel safe having people hike through.

It's about 150m down to the floor of it. They put rock piles for you to follow from one side to the other.

It just looks like a huge asphalt depot sparsely populated by native shrubs.

The lava creates so many different cool shapes.

This is the same slab. It has a different texture on each side. It's like holding a piece of a river.

There's unique vegetation growing here. These islands in general are full of all kinds of flowers and weird fruiting plants. Paradise for a botanist.

There's so many textures and crevasses from what I assume are different eruptions and flows over time all adding to the crater floor.

Olivine crystals. These have made a "green sand beach" in the south. Sadly didn't get to go since it requires a good hike. You need a car to see it basically.

Check out this 360 view in the middle of the crater:

Fissure 8 Tours

Tried to leverage having a car to do something in between airbnb’s. When Kilauea erupted in 2018, multiple fissures opened up on the east side and slowly buried Leilani Estates. This is still privately owned land so you can’t view/tour it unless you book with one of the owners: https://www.f8va.com/ . I guess there’s a silver lining to everything. Who else can say they own volcanic craters? I learned that they indeed had volcano insurance and that the government is trying to lowball the landowners trying to sell off their properties to turn this into a state park.

Check out Hawaii on Googlemaps sattelite view to appreciate the extent of these eruptions.

That's the guy! You meet up with him at the end of the road at his current residence and he starts showing you the "before" pictures.

Then takes you onto his 12 acre property to where his house used to be.

There's a big tree mold from the tree where his son's treehouse used to be.

You can go inside and check out this chimney created by a big branch. There's no trace of wood left in there, it all burned away.

You then get back in your car to drive to Fissure 8. Unfortunately at this point I noticed this on my front tire along with a "low pressure" warning from the rental.

We cancelled the tour so I could go to a garage. They couldn't do anything and there was no spare so I got Avis to send a tow truck.

Got towed back to the airport to exchange cars. This all literally wasted my entire day. I hate renting cars and will avoid it like the plague in the future.

Back in Hilo in the same apartment complex as before, but a different ( and better ) room!

Still with duck river. Really appreciated the nice Airbnb. It'll be a factor in me traveling going forward: How nice of a place can I afford?

The weather is so perfect in the morning and evenings here. Was such a great spot for coffee.

Kaumana Caves

Had planned to drop by here with the car since it’s a ways from the Airbnb…. Sadly could only drop by during the Mona Loa bike ride. It’s a self-supported tour through a cool cave. Bring lights! Would have done it if I wasn’t wearing bike cleats.

You just get pictures of both entrances. I assume it's some kind of loop in there?

Lopahoehoe Train Museum

Dropped by on the road to Waipi’o Valley. It’s super small and not sure it’s worth the detour…

There's lots of vestiges of the old railroad that was used to ship the sugar canes around the island to be shipped out from Hilo

It's just a few rooms with little dioramas about the railroads and the Island.

The guy let me refill my water bottles so that's a win in my book.

Richardson Beach
This is the best beach for snorkeling near Hilo. There’s a free bus that takes you right there from downtown. All buses on the Big Island are free…. if they show up. They are all driven by angry Asian dudes with a Hawaiian shirt. They yell things like “BACK DOOR NO WORK, FRONT DOOR ONLY” and you can understand about 20% of the words. It’s great.

Still way better than blowing 2 hours renting an expensive car at the airport only to have it crap on you and waste 4 hours waiting for a tow truck.

While free, the bus system is bad. This is a "bus stop" according to them. You can only know about it by using Googlemaps and planning a public transit route. 0/10, try again.

Not the greatest day for snorkeling let's just say. Waves still at an acceptable non-lethal level though.

Lot of these huge snails on the rock walls and plants.

Mongoose were introduced to the island to eat the rats. Spoiler: They are eating everything else too. At least they didn't introduce dingos to eat the mongoose and then bears to eat the dingos.

Look at his beady little red eyes. Local woman told me they also carry rabies! But they're so cute though, I want one.

The beach has several tide pools and sheltered rocky area for you to explore and check the marine life in relative safety.

Was my first time seeing the turtles up close as well!

They really just don't give a fuck. I understand why they warn you to not touch them because you really could so easily.

That’s it for the Big Island! Then it was off to Maui! There’s one direct flight per day, it costs like 90$ and it was just 25$ to bring the bike. What a deal. If you ever come to Hawaii to bike you have no excuse not to do all the climbing.

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