Hawaii Day 3 - Volcanoes National Park

It seems we were able to conquer jet lag. I was able to sleep until about 6:30 and Ross started stirring around 7. We wanted to try to get to the Thurston Lava Tube before 9am based on what the National Parks app was recommending. But we also didn’t rush ourselves. Once we got ourselves together, we walked over to the cafe for some breakfast. I ordered a “short” stack of banana pancakes and Ross had a veggie omelette with a side of potatoes. My three pancakes were huge, but I figured it would cover breakfast and lunch (which it pretty much did). Ross’ meal also covered lunch too. Properly fueled, we headed towards the lava tube parking area.

I think the lava tube is one of the most popular spots in Volcanoes National Park and probably the spot with the least amount of parking. We were lucky to find a spot on our second attempt through. It was a bit amusing watching people try and wait out for spots later in the day. The road is one way, so they were mostly blocking traffic with very few opportunities to get around. 

Thankful for our parking spot we wandered into the jungle towards the tube. The NPS app said this walk would be good for birdwatching, so our binoculars were at the ready. We could hear tons of chirping and squawking, but the birds were hard to spot at first! 

We walked through the lava tube which was pretty neat! Dark, damp, and a little claustrophobic, but a good quick experience. Once we were out of the tube, we finished the walk back up to the parking lot and decided to to another short hike. We did spy two Kalij Pheasant walking the road too! On our second short hike of the day we added another bird to the list, the Apapane, a cute little red and black bird that we started to see everywhere. Most of the singing we heard and continued to hear all day, was the Apapane.

As we got down the trail, a crater came into view. How cool! We got to see this smaller crater from many viewpoints today, but the first one is always pretty exciting. After that short hike, we moved over to the Devastation trail. This trail follows along where an eruption occurred in 1959. Very interesting to see how the landscape changed from the jungle we had just walked through to very little vegetation. But along with the shrubby bushes and trees, we spied another bird, the Hawaiian Amakihi. A cute yellow bird. The Devastation trails was maybe .5 miles one way and an easy walk. Parking was much easier too. 

After the Devastation trail, we headed back closer to the Visitor’s Center and our lodging to see the Steam Vents. It was funny to us that people from all over the world gathered here to watch the earth puff out steam from its belly. Don’t get me wrong, it’s fascinating to see, but funny that people are all in on Earth farts. We did also get to the Sulfur trail near by, so the Earth was definitely farting. So stinky!

By this time, it was mid-day and the Novy clan was at the Visitor’s Center. And every other patron of the NPS. We tried to find a parking spot at the center, but alas, none were available. We did find a spot at the Volcano Lodge across the street and the Novy’s were able to sneak into a spot next to us. The elder Novy’s wanted to eat lunch, but there was a 40 min wait, so Richard and Cindy hopped into our car and the four of us went to the highest point in the park just a short drive from the Visitor’s center. As we drove, we spotted the famous Nene bird! It is the state bird and endangered. We saw a family of 4, two parents and two fluffy babies. They look a lot like Canadian Geese, but with a slightly different paint job. 

When we got to our little hike/drive, we topped out at 4,088 feet and got great views of the big crater. After another short walk, we drove Richard and Cindy back to Volcano Lodge. Since there was still no parking, Ross and I decided to head back to our room for a few. 

We we walked up to our door, we found that the lock had been swapped out from a slide in card reader to an RFID tap to enter. We knew that conversion was happening this week, but didn’t think it would happen while we were still staying in the room. Since we couldn’t get into the room at the moment, we decided to do one more hike. We headed back towards the Devastation trail, but took a different path. This one, we were hoping, would lead us down into the smaller crater we had seen from several angles up above. 

This was our longest hike of the day, but it paid off! We did get into the crater and it looked like the moon or some other world. We also spotted the island’s only raptor, the Hawaiian Hawk. After spending a few minutes in the crater, we turned around to make the trek back to the car. It was by far the best hike of the day. Terrain changes, a little challenging, about 2 miles of hiking, and a few new birds!

  

It was getting to be about 4pm and we were starting to get tired from the day. I wanted to stop back at the Visitor’s Center for a few trinkets before heading back to the room. Now that it was later in the day, parking was no problem. We picked up a National Parks passport, a park patch and pin. I have a jean vest I want to put location patches and pins on, similar to the vest I had for derby stuff. 

We worked up an appetite from the day, so we headed back to the room. When we parked we saw some birds in the grassy area near by! We scurried to our room to drop all our goods off, pick the binoculars back up and hoped they didn’t fly away. With great luck, they stuck around! One was a Common Myna we had already spotted, but the other one looked like a little long-legged sea bird. One of our birding apps wasn’t coming up with any options, so we had to google it. Luckily, we found our answer - a Pacific Golden Plover! Was a fun surprise! I didn’t expect to see a sea bird here. But it was added to the list!

I took a quick shower before we headed out for dinner. We left the park for the first time since we arrived the night before and went into the town of Volcano. We had dinner at Thai Thai. Despite being pricey, the food was very good. My curry was excellent and Ross’ Pad Ke Mao was mostly good. Some of the veggies were cold. Overall the second best meal of the trip so far. 

With our bellies full, it was time to wind down for the night. I grabbed the iPad to start writing the blog post for the night. While sitting here, everything went black. The power went out! We thought it might just be our little row of cottages, but I called the front desk just to let them know. Turns out the entire Park was without power. The electric company was doing rolling blackouts to conserve power. The outage lasted less than 30 minutes. 

With that, I finished up this post and we will be getting to bed soon. Tomorrow we move onto Hilo on the east side of the island for one night.

Stats of the Day:

Steps: 23,823

Birds added to the Life List: 6

Number of bad drivers in the park: Too many to count