This morning we docked in Hilo and I joined a private tour organised by Jan, a Cruise Critic member. Jan arranged for Ricky to take 24 of us around Hilo and Volcano National Park for most of the day.
We drove along Banyan Drive and past the Liliuokalani Gardens in Hilo before going to Richardsons Ocean Beach to take photos of the black sand. Our next stop was Rainbow Falls and although the waterfall wasn’t strong the rainbow was still present. Apparently Hilo has a very high rainfall but we were lucky today with sunshine the entire day.
We spent some time within Volcano National Park, visiting the Jaggar Museum and the Halemaumau crater, the 1982 lava flow and walking through the Thurston Lava Tube which was nice and cool, and also very dark. Mauna Loa was to our right as we viewed the steaming crater. Mauna Loa is apparently 100 times the size of Mt Rainier and when it blows, is expected to go like Mt St Helens – in which case I hope the locals are far, far away.
The visit to the national park was punctuated with stops at a macadamia nut factory and the Akatsuka Orchid Garden.which, naturally, cultivates orchids.
The overall impression of this part of the island is a quaint town of Hilo, lava flows and vegetation gone wild. I would have liked to have stopped along the way to take more photos but as it was, the tour went for an hour longer than expected but it was very comprehensive.
I was dropped off at Walmart at the end of the tour so bought my fins and some soft drinks then joined the free shuttle back to the ship. I think there were only 1 or 2 other passengers apart from myself on the coach, the rest were the ship's crew who had hit the shops as soon as they had free time.
I was dropped off at Walmart at the end of the tour so bought my fins and some soft drinks then joined the free shuttle back to the ship. I think there were only 1 or 2 other passengers apart from myself on the coach, the rest were the ship's crew who had hit the shops as soon as they had free time.
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