So we went to Hawaii for Spring break. When we say we went to Hawaii, of course the state of Hawaii but in particular we spent the time on the island of Hawaii (aka the Big Island). We spent the first half the trip based in Hilo on the east side of the island. More about Hilo on the next page, first up is Hawaii Volcanoes National Park where we spent the first day. It's less than an hour's drive from Hilo to the Volcano visitor center. Hawaii is a land of exciting warning signs, starting with this one.

See? They meant it. Here is a steam vent. A loop trail just west of the visitor center will take you past several steam vents, sulphur deposits and also a pretty good view of the Kiluaea crater. This is a bit of an exciting trail, as you can see in this picture you're not right on the edge, but you are pretty close.

This is the main Kiluaea crater. You can see much of it from the crater rim trail. There are overlooks you can reach directly by car. We ate lunch in Volcano House where the restaurant has a great view of it, and we hiked into the south side as well where you could (at the time) occassionally see lava flowing. Basically there are viewpoints all around it, it's just a question of whether or not it's active (but not too active) when you arrive.

This is the Nahuku Lava Tube. Not too far from the visitor center, there are a number of stairs down to the lava tube, which you can then hike through. Definitely worth the hike here if you can manage the stairs.

This is a princess flower. It's a particularly nice photo so I'm putting it here even though it's an invasive flower to Hawaii and probably shouldn't be included. Invasive or not, they are pretty though.

From the same parking area as the lava tube trailhead, you can follow the Kiluaea Iki trail. You can see quite a bit of it here, it's the light gray streak across the darker gray crater floor. As you can also see it's a pretty serious descent to get down there. This trail connects into the crater rim trail and the visitor center and a number of connector trails allowing all sorts of loops.

If you continue to follow the chain of craters road you'll eventually end up here on the coast. That is the Holei sea arch which is the star attraction of the coastline here, but all of it is quite impressive. It was a stormy afternoon on our visit and we had already been out hiking in sideways rain on the lava fields. The hike here is even more impressive with a rough ocean and big breaking waves.