Big Island -

Hawaii – Big Island is getting bigger and bigger…

Gosia — Tue, 07 Nov 2017 07:02:47 +0000

When I landed at the Kailua Kona airport, located in Hawaiian Big Island, I felt like being a part of Apollo mission. I was surprised that after only 40-minute flight I saw totally different reality. Sandy beaches from O’ahu Island were replaced by rocks and black sand. Lushy, verdant Hawaiian vegetation gave place to the apocalyptic, volcanic landscape which seemed to have no end. The culprit of this is Kilauea – one of the most active volcanoes on earth. At first sight it looks inconspicuously because on the contrary to other volcanoes it has a flat, wide cone and its eruption isn’t vertical. Kilauea’s eruption goes through two rift valleys. From these fissures in the earth’s crust, magma flows. Kilauea’s eruption started in 1983 and the volcano is still active. It constantly extends the area of Big Island. In 2014 increased volcanic activity threatened small town – Pahoa, located on eastern side of the island. Driving the road no. 137 along the eastern coast of Big Island one can see interesting black sand beaches and typical, monotonous, post-volcanic scenery. Due to the volcanic activity, the road ends on makeshift car park. From this point you can go for a walk across the lava desert to the New Kaimu beach, known also as Coconut Beach. What’s more interesting, some people live here, in the middle of black, barren lava field. Estates on Hawaii are very expensive except Pahoa surroundings. So if you want to move to Hawaii and you are short of money, here’s the offer: detached house on the active volcanic area without electricity and running water but with full panorama of volcanic area. Just take a look… Houses are located very close to the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park where above mentioned Kilauea volcano is situated. But it’s not the end… Kilauea is actually a volcano in volcano. Inside you can see Halema’uma’u crater which is its most active part. Kilauea isn’t the only one attraction in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. Close to the crater you see steaming Sulphur banks. Nearby sulphur banks is viewing platform, which apart from being a good vantage point it’s a place where you can feel the heat coming from the ground. A little bit farther form the volcano on so called Crater Rim Drive you can visit Thurston Lava Tube – a cave which was formed by magma flow. The path to this place is very surprising because it’s the only place where you can see verdant vegetation for a change. Crater Rim Drive crosses with Chain of Craters Road, which leads across post-volcanic scenery to the coast. Practical info: Admission to the park costs 10$ per car (ticket is valid 7 days). Car is necessary to see everything as attractions are located in a quite long distance from one another. ” order_by=”sortorder” order_direction=”ASC” returns=”included” maximum_entity_count=”500″]

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Hawaii – four islands and some beaches…

Gosia — Thu, 05 Jan 2017 08:11:54 +0000

I must admit that I have a problem with spending leisure time at the beach. I cannot do it and I treat beaches as a part of a sightseeing plan. I can spend 2 hours maximally at one beach. Of course, I don’t spend this time on sunbathing. Hawaii turned out to be a perfect place for me. There’re a lot of beaches which can be explored 😉 and what’s more important they varied a lot! Every of four islands, which I’ve visited has something new to offer. O’ahu O’ahu it’s the most popular Hawaiian Island. Here’s famous Honolulu and the majority of tourists arrive here as a first place, and usually the last one. So you can imagine how crowded can be the most popular beach on O’ahu – Waikiki. Bearing that in mind and in view of the tight itinerary, I had only a glimpse of that beach from a car. A little bit later, I could admire it together with whole Honolulu, from the Diamond Head peak. There’s one invaluable advantage of Waikiki beach, while it’s always overcrowded, other beaches, which are located farther from Honolulu are desolated. Like Lanikai Beach – situated in the north-eastern shore. On the other hand, western part of O’ahu Island guarantees amazing sunsets, and even possibilty to see turtles basking on the sun. However, the most beautiful is Hanauma Bay. It’s the only one beach in Hawaii where you need to pay admission. It’s a strict nature reserve and an ideal place to observe underwater world as well. More about this beach and its surrounding you’ll find here. Maui An interesting example which presents the variety of Hawaiian islands is Maui Island. You can rest here on beautiful, white sand beaches with emerald water, like Polo Beach. But then again, on the other, eastern part of the Island, close to the famous Hana Road you can spend your time at black-sand beaches like Waianapanapa State Park. Big Island Beaches located on the Big Island can also be divided into, let’s say “hotel beaches”, which look like those, well known from holidays catalogues. As an example below – Mauna Kea Beach. Sometimes they’re surrounded by golf courses and even the access roads to them, make a great impression. On the other hand, on Big Island you can encounter also wild, rocky beaches, where you can put up a tent and have whole these places for yourself. Kaua’i According to the law, every beach is public in Hawaii. However, it can happen that the beach is public, but the access to it is private or what’s even worse, it can be inaccessible in view of the terrain conditions. One of such beaches is located on my favourite Hawaiian island – Kauai. It’s surrounded by the impressive cliffs of Na Pali Natural Reserve. I’ve had opportunity to see this marvel form air and ocean perspective and I must admit that this experience belongs to the category marked under the label “metaphysical” but I’ll write about it another time 😉 Close to Na Pali, you can rest at beautiful Tunnels Beach, which has great conditions for snorkeling, surfing or kitesurfing. The ocean bottom here was shaped by volcanic activity which created special tunnels – nowadays the habitat for a large variety of fish and unfortunately sharks, so be careful 😉 Another interesting beach is Polihale State Park – here you can see the first cliffs of Na Pali Reserve. This beach is located off the beaten track and it’s really secluded. What’s more, according to one Hawaiian guy, there’s one unwritten principle that sunbathers can lie at least 300 meters from one another 😉 ‘ On the other side of the Na Pali cliffs you can relax on beautiful, wild Ke’e Beach. As you can see, in case of beaches, you definitely won’t be bored in Hawaii. I know that I’ll get back there, as during my stay I saw only a little part of these marvelous islands 😉 ” order_by=”sortorder” order_direction=”ASC” returns=”included” maximum_entity_count=”500″]

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Mauna Kea – invisible Hawaiian cows, avalanches and a lot of more…

Gosia — Sun, 15 Nov 2015 11:15:42 +0000

This time, I won’t write on gorgeous Hawaiian beaches, turquoise Pacific, colorful underwater coral reef world, high cliffs, tropical rainforests or spectacular waterfalls. It’s time for bitter cold of Hawaiian tundra and inhospitable polar climate. Only on Hawaii, more precisely on Big Island is possible to swim in the warm ocean in the morning and go snowboarding in the evening. This island has 11 different climate zones. What’s more, the highest mountain in the world, to be exact extinct volcano – Mauna Kea is located here. Mauna Kea with the height of 33 000 ft (10 203 m) is higher than Mount Everest when measured form oceanic base but form the sea level it reaches 13 796 ft (4 205 m). Not only beautiful views attract few people there. Mauna Kea is famous for a perfect visibility and clean air. The sky is clear for 90% days of the year which enables perfect conditions to space exploration. The peak houses the world’s largest observatory. Some telescopes like Subaru or W.M. Keck are open for tourists. Unfortunately, 2-hour trip to the peak is full of surprises which can be really dangerous. There’re a lot of dangers. Narrow steep road, variable weather, blizzards, fogs, avalanches or even tempestuous winds are common here. Not to mention that driving to the top is strictly forbidden by most car rental companies. Obviously we had in mind all these warnings, but from our experience some of them can be rank similarly to those printed on coffee cups in McDonald’s. We started our trip on a sunny day. Driving along famous Saddle Road we could see not only changing landscape, from tropical forests to barren tundra, but also deteriorating weather conditions. We weren’t surprised by this fact, having taken into account our travel experience it had been expected that our visit there would be exact on one of these 10% days of the year which are in short awful. There’s another danger connected with the way to the Mauna Kea summit. It’s the only place where it’s possible to drive from the sea level to 13 796 ft (4 205 m) only in 2 hours. On the top there’s 40% less oxygen and the pressure is 60% lower than that on the sea level, not to mention about temperature which is below 0. Fast ascending can lead to altitude sickness. The first symptoms include: nausea, headaches, drowsiness, loss of balance, shallow breathing and dehydration. It can result in pulmonary and cerebral edema. In order to minimize the risk, we stopped off at a shelter where we could acclimatize on the height of 9 199 ft (2 804 m). Visiting the shelter can be really discouraging. Apart from numerous warnings we got to know that there’s also another danger – the risk of close meeting with cows! What’s more these cows have not only climbing abilities but also they are invisible! The fact that they are on this altitude is ridiculous on its own, let alone that they stealthily flash the road, remained unnoticed! But we saw it in person what these perfidious beasts can do with a ranger’s car. In brief, her car was totaled. Fortunately our journey to the Mauna Kea was safe, excluding the fog which accompanied us also on the top. By courtesy of W.M. Keck we could have an image of the landscape on the rest 90% clear days. Additionally during only 15 minutes which I spent on the top I experienced most of the first symptom of altitude sickness. I dehydrated very fast. I had shallow breathing, nausea and terrible headache. There was nothing else than fast return to the lower altitude. The weather conditions deteriorated and the road seemed endless. I had felt much better and better to the moment when we saw a cloud of smoke which was approaching very fast. It looked like the threat of close meeting with a horde of invisible cows. But what we saw next was much more irrational. It was a beat – up car with two passengers (they were dressed in swimming clothes and flip flops) two pit bulls and 2 surfboards inside! Damaged radiator, bitter cold, the way in the middle of nowhere, lac of visibility and to top it all off, the threat of wild cattle attack. That was the real expedition to the highest peak of the world! Damaged car on the way to Mauna Kea is a really big trouble. Insurance doesn’t cover it and towing is very expensive. Repairing the car was impossible so we decided to try go down. I cannot stop wondering how we managed to do it. Undoubtedly it was the most interesting experience on Mauna Kea 🙂 ” order_by=”sortorder” order_direction=”ASC” returns=”included” maximum_entity_count=”500″]

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