Hot stuff!

By Cecilia Brabin | May 3, 2012

A traveller’s experience of a trip to Hawaii Volcanoes National Park

For 25 years and counting, Kilauea has been sending hot ribbons of lava into the sea, boiling it on contact, making black-sand beaches and headlines – burying entire towns and sacred Hawaiian temples.

It is the world’s most active volcano and the best geological show on the planet!

Best of all, you can walk straight up to the molten stuff. Or nearly, anyway: the toxic plume blanketing the shoreline, cliffs and unstable new lava mean that you can only get so close and still live to tell your friends about it! But visit Hawaii Volcanoes National Park where the volcano and its goddess Pele live, and you will have stories about much more than live lava: hikes through steaming craters and secret lava tubes, petroglyph fields and white-sand beaches are just a few of the other wonders of a visit to Hawaii’s Big Island.

The story of the fire and volcano goddess Pele is fascinating. Legend says that Pele is like a normal human being in form and emotions; except for rage or anger. If she becomes the slightest bit annoyed (and apparently she has a short temper!) then she will start volcanic eruptions or other lava flows. In recent years something must truly have aggravated her; she has been very active since 1983!!

The volcano has been getting a bit frisky lately; check up on road and site closures before you go.

There is a 20 mile round-trip from Halape which has a series of scalloped white-sand beaches with good snorkelling at the base of rugged cliffs, and Keauhou is one of the Big Island’s most savagely beautiful landscapes combining cliffs, ocean, lava, sand and succulents.

Watching the live lava flow is considerably more dramatic at night as the setting sun slips away over the horizon and is followed by the stunning spectacle of glowing lava reflected against the night sky as it flows into the sea leaving plumes of steam hissing and pouring into the air. You need to take sturdy shoes, a reliable torch, and just maybe a dictionary in order to help you to find the words that can adequately describe this spectacularly breathtaking display of the power of Pele and Mother Nature!!