We stopped for a quick picture by the side of the road.
This is Halema'uma'u Crater. It's been erupting since 2008. Unfortunately, we weren't able to visit at night to see the glowing red lava.
This crater is Kilauea Crater, which is no longer erupting. You can actually hike across the crater but we didn't have time on this trip.
Friday evening we headed into Hilo on the east side of Hawaii. We had dinner at an awesome place called Hilo Bay Cafe and checked into our super corny Uncle Billy's Hilo Bay Hotel. We kept our lanai door open so we could sleep with a frog and bird soundtrack.
View from Uncle Billy's.
Saturday morning we went for a run around Hilo Bay and packed up the car for another long drive up the east coast of Hawaii. Our stops included waterfalls, beautiful valleys, tasty organic smoothies and gorgeous ranch land.
Rainbow Falls
Boiling Pots with Pe'epe'e Falls in the background.
Akaka Falls, a 422 foot waterfall. Here, we learned about a goby that climbs up the entire falls!
Saturday evening we headed up to the visitor's center on Mauna Kea. This center is known as one of the best places in the world for stargazing. We were lucky since it was a new moon on this night, and people were coming from all over to view the night sky. Mauna Kea is the tallest peak in Hawaii and the tallest mountain in the world! Oh yeah well about 20,000 feet of it is under water!
Our view from above the clouds.
We spent a lazy day on Sunday just hanging by the pool. We stayed at the Hilton Waikoloa Village. This place is so big there is a monorail that takes you to your room! The weather was amazing, although the pools were freezing!
On Monday morning we did a short hike to see some ancient petro-glyphs and then headed south into Kona Town. In Kona we found some fresh poke and then checked into the Royal Kona and got an oceanfront room! We grabbed a quick Mai Tai at Don the Beachcomber and drove to the harbor for our manta ray snorkel.
Tuesday morning we had an early start and we fueled ourselves with the tastiest acai bowls from BASIK acai. We did 2 dives off the Kona coast. Our first dive was at a spot called Pyramid Pinnacle due to the large volcanic pyramids formed underwater. Our second dive was called Suck 'Em Ups. Earlier in the day we saw whales and during the dive I could actually hear the whales! Don't tell anybody I was holding my breath to hear them!
Of course our trip wouldn't be complete without a trip to Kona Brewing...that place was packed!
The trip overall was amazing! There is so much more to Hawaii then we would ever imagined. We already have a whole other trip planned for all the things we missed out on during this trip. I hope you guys like all the pictures. We also took some video of the mantas and our dives so look out for some of that footage soon.
Happy Valentine's Day!
xoxoxo
-D
