Our goal for today was to visit Pu’uhonua o Hōnaunau National Historical Park, just an hour south of our hotel. We succeeded – and it only took us four hours to get there!

We needed to visit the concierge before we left so that we could convert some of our excess “Club Points” into resort credit, which was a smooth process. We mentioned our plans; he suggested we stop for lunch at Coffee Shack before going on to the park. That sounded like a good idea, and we set forth.

We were almost to the restaurant when I saw a sign out of the corner of my eye: “Garden open today”. We’d discovered the elusive Amy B. H. Greenwell Ethnobotanical Garden! They are still recovering from the pandemic – they’d given up their phone to save money, and the volunteer we talked to described the website as a “work in progress”. Most of the people there were preparing for their “Grow Hawaiian Festival” this weekend, but we did see a few other tourists during the hour we spent walking through the garden.

Their focus is on plants and trees that Hawaiians used; some are now endangered and they’re trying to preserve them. Others are very common (like the noni tree), and they’re trying to preserve the knowledge of how they are used.

There were chickens all over the grounds, presiding over the goings-on.

Some of the plants were beautiful as well as being useful, like the Ū’lei and the hibiscus.

We left the gardens reluctantly and drove another five minutes to the Coffee Shack. It was popular; we had to wait half-an-hour to be seated. Luckily, the view from their deck was stunning, and so was the food. We had the pan-sauteed Ono sandwich and split a lilikoi (passionfruit) cheesecake.

We finally reached Pu’uhonua o Hōnaunau National Historical Park about 2:30pm, just in time to join a ranger (who described herself as a lineal descendant of the ancient Hawaiians) talk about how the ancient traditions survive today. She also talked about the sacredness of the place and urged us to treat it appropriately (not everyone does, sadly).

We spent about an hour walking the Royal Grounds and the Pu’uhonua (refuge). You can read a full description on the park’s website; here are some of my favorite photos from our tour.

We began at a scale model of the royal mausoleum, a heiau (temple) just on shore.

There were quite a few carvings of ki’i (Hawaiian gods) throughout the site.

Royalty (ali’i) were the only ones who were allowed to land canoes at the cove here.

But Hawaiians seeking refuge and rehabilitation from kapu (taboo) violations (punishable by death) also came here to the Pu’uhonua.

Legend says that Queen Ka’ahumanu (one of Kamehameha’s wives) swam to the Pu’uhonua after they quarreled and hid beneath this stone.

There were fish ponds on the site – reserved for royalty, of course.

We also got to see some halaus, one of which is used by modern artisans and one of which holds a canoe.

The park asks people not to sunbathe or swim here – but Two-Step Beach is just outside the park boundaries and is very popular!

We left the park and headed back to our hotel by way of Ali’i Drive and Kona. We wanted to have dinner at the Kona Brewery in town, but parking there was impossible, so we let Google steer us to a small local pizzeria, Big Island Pizza right behind Costco. It wasn’t crowded, they made a fine pizza, and I was happy to take the option to accompany it with a tasty beer from Oregon (Deschutes’ Black Butte Porter)!

We visited Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park today; it’s about a two-hour drive from our hotel. Well, more like three hours when you add stops for lunch, gasoline, and other necessities of life, so we got to the Visitor Station about 1:30pm. It was raining with occasional breaks, which would continue throughout our visit to the park.

We waited for the 2pm guided walk to the nearby eruption viewing area; it was led by an intern who mostly talked about birds, but we did get our first view of Kilauea crater.

This part of the crater wasn’t affected by the current eruption, though it had been remade by the eruptions a few years ago; plants were already beginning to re-colonize it.

After the walk, we went to Volcano House to look at their gift shop (much more enticing than the one in the Visitor Center, but we managed to leave empty-handed anyway) and take advantage of the crater view there.

We returned to the car and set out on Crater Rim Drive, westbound. The Kilauea Overlook was our first stop; we enjoyed the warmth of the steam vents and a better view of the crater.

Crater Rim Drive used to go all the way around the crater, but that changed with the 2018 eruptions; we had to turn around and drive the eastern half of the road. We stopped at the Kilauea Ski parking area and walked the trail to the Thurston Lava Tube.

There were lots of holes along the way – we gave them a wide berth.

You can go a few hundred yards into the tube, but we had other plans in mind, so we only saw the first twenty feet.

We’d been told that the best viewing of the current eruption in Halemaʻumaʻu crater was from the Old Crater Rim Road (now a trail), so we drove to the parking lot and took the 3/4-mile walk to the viewing area. We saw nene on the lava field next to the trail; it’s their nesting season and there were signs posted reminding you to keep your distance – nene can get aggressive.

Finally, we reached the viewing area. It was easy to see the plumes of steam from the crater, but we couldn’t see any glowing lava. The photo at the top of the page shows offerings that previous visitors had left for Pele, the volcano goddess – and they seemed to be working, because the eruption had diminished significantly today.

We decided against driving Chain of Craters Road because of the late hour; we headed for our hotel, with a dinner stop at the Dimple Cheek Cafe, where the food was tasty and the portions generous – Diane and I split a salad and an entrée and that filled us up nicely.

It was a long day but well worth the trip; I wish we’d been able to see the lava glowing, but I guess that’s why there’s a webcam!