There are a number of stray cats running around! They were noisy last night with their catfights! Once again we woke with the sunrise. We quietly packed up our gear, ate a breakfast in the day-use area, then proceeded north to seek out the hiking trail to Captain Cook’s monument, one of the best snorkeling areas on the island only accessible by a 1.5 mile hike or by boat. We had a hard time finding the trailhead as it is an unmarked route. We eventually found it off of Hwy 160 just before it rejoins with Hwy 11. The trailhead is located between the first two roads off of hwy 160. Next to a wooden telephone pole, the trailhead actually looks like a one-car dirt driveway off the road fully enclosed by super tall grass, you have to look closely to spot the little hiking trail that continues beyond the NW corner of the grass wall. We threw our gear into our backpacks and headed out.
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| Breakfast |
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| Hiking down to Cook's Memorial |
It was a fairly steep, very hot and dry hike. We reached the monument and only a handful of people were present by boat, enjoying the snorkeling. Over the hour we snorkled, the little cove filled with kayakers and tour boats, pumping the water with tourists. We nearly got ran over by a catamaran! We decided to get out of the mess of boats and bodies. The bay contained very cool coral and lots of it, but we didn’t see too much beyond the mainstay fish. The Monument was cool, commemorating the death of Captain Cook; apparently very close to the place he actually was killed. The monument is technically British soil. The funny thing was the monument said Captain James Cook, RN. We took a picture of it. Sure, it stands for Royal Navy, but Mat was trying to argue that Captain Cook was the most bad ass of male nurses.
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| Hike down to Cook's Monument |
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| Snorkeling at Captain Cook's monument (this is before it really filled up) |
The hike up back to the car was hot and grueling. We finally made it to our air conditioned sanctuary and drove south to new territory: Volcanoes National Park! We did a quick detour to visit South Point, the southern most point of the US. It was a pretty area; very dry, windy, and desolate with no running streams. Yet it was the place were the Polynesians first settled. Why? Because the land drops off into deep water so quickly here that you basically have open ocean directly off shore. Open ocean means delicious fish!!! There were mostly cliffs in this area, so ancient contraptions were rigged up to hoist fishing boats down to and up off of the water. I didn’t spot any of them but apparently there are large rings carved out of rock where the ancient Hawaiians tied their fishing boats to so they could fish without being swept away by wind or currents. The area is definitely very windy but also the ocean current here goes all the way to Antarctica without any disruption. Cool area.
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| South Point |
Back on the road, we made a straight shot to Volcanoes National Park. After we paid the $10 entrance fee we realized Namakanipaio campground was outside the park limits. Luckily the entrance ticket was good for 10 days so we promptly turned around to find the campground. The good news is this campground has real showers, the bad news is the showers were currently closed temporarily. OK, no shower today after this morning's snorkeling and big, sweaty climb back to the car. A bathroom sink “bath” will have to do. After setting up camp and cleaning up a bit, we headed into the park, stopping at the visitor’s center to get the latest volcano activity update.
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| Namakanipaio Campground |
Unfortunately, the most recent lava flow has cooled off, the park ranger said the only way to see flowing lava is by helicopter. Well there’s no way in hell we’re going to pay for that so we got back into the car and drove as fast as we could down the Chain of Craters road to the Petroglyph trail I wanted to see before sunset. The petroglyph trail was awesome: abstract shapes as well as shapes of humans and sea turtles. One amazing petroglyph depicts a boat sailing on the ocean with a bright light (sun, moon, a star, a comet?) leading the way. The entire area was covered in little indentations, apparently the ancient Hawaiians dug these small indentation and placed their child’s umbilical cord there for the child to gain mana or spiritual power. I loved seeing this trail.
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| Petroglyph depicting a sailing vessel and a guiding light |
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| Sea turtle petroglyph |
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| Petroglyphs on the Petroglyph trail, Volcanoes Nationa Park |
Back at the car, we drove to the end of the road, parked, then walked along it to possibly see something of a lava flow. The sun was setting while we walked along the road causing the clouds to turn pink. I noticed something odd, however. There was one stand-alone cloud to the east that was lit up with a faint red glow. It looked like all the clouds in the west, but it sat on it’s own in the east. I realized that the singular cloud was lit up because it was hovering directly over Pu’u ‘O ‘o, the current active volcano. We walked on until the sky was almost completely dark, but for the red cloud towards the northeast. We took some pictures and played with the camera a bit before deciding to head back to the car. No one else was around, no other cars parked in the parking lot, just Mat and I goofing off with an amazing night sky!
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| Pu'u 'O'o lighting up the night sky |
Eventually we got in the car and headed up to the Jaggar overlook to observe the orange glow of the Kilauea crater. There was quite a group of people here with their cameras snapping shots and talking photo talk. We were exhausted by this point so we drove back to the campground for bed. Sleep should be easy, it’s quite cooler at this elevation.
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| Kilauea Crater at night |
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