We returned to the Hilo side of the island again today to visit Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. Unlike our trip last year, Kilauea hadn’t erupted in a few months, and the weather was perfect (we’d brought ponchos in case it was raining and fleece jackets in case it was cool – all of which stayed in the car).

We started with a quick stop at the Visitor Center to get ideas for the afternoon, and a longer stop at Volcano House to have a snack and admire the view of the Kilauea Caldera from their back porch.

While Kilauea hadn’t erupted since September, it’s still active, and the USGS is keeping a close eye on its condition; there have been more small earthquakes than usual in the last couple of weeks, but they don’t think anything is imminent.

We wanted to hike over to the Kilauea Iki Overlook, but we took a wrong turn as we left Volcano House and found ourselves on the Halema’uma’ui Trail, going down to the 1974 lava flow at the edge of the caldera. The trail guide would have been useful, but I didn’t discover it until I started writing this blog entry!

When we reached the lava flow, I looked closely at the map and decided we’d walk the Byron Ridge Trail along the lava field which would eventually take us to the Kilauea Iki Trail and the Kilauea Iki Overlook. We crossed the lava field easily (thanks to the ahu (stacked rocks) that NPS uses to mark the trail).

What I hadn’t realized was that we had to climb up a few hundred feet to get to the intersection of the Byron Ridge and the Kilauea Iki Trails. It was an easy climb, but we were low on water by the time we got to the top, so we changed plans and went back to Volcano Lodge on the Crater Rim Trail.

Next time we come to the Big Island, we’ll plan to spend a couple of nights on the Hilo side (perhaps at Volcano Lodge) instead of commuting from the Kona side – that would give us four hours a day more to do things instead of driving! I’ll also research the trails much more carefully (or, at the very least, ask the ranger to mark our map!) and bring more water.

We got back to Volcano Lodge at 3pm, just as the kitchen was closing, so we couldn’t have lunch there. I checked Yelp and found a promising new restaurant, Wyatt’s Place about half an hour away. When we got there, it was strangely familiar; – we’d eaten there last year when it was called the Dimple Cheek Cafe. The new owners are in the process of remodeling the place; they have a limited menu, limited seating, but they make a very good french dip sandwich (they recommended we split one, and it was plenty) and I hope they succeed.

We took Hawaii Route 200 (Saddle Road) back to the Marriott.

There wasn’t much traffic in our direction, but I did have to brake for a wild goat crossing the highway!

We plan on staying on this side of the island tomorrow. :-)

When we visited the Big Island for the first time last year, we braved the rain to see the Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden on the Hilo side of the island on our last day here.

We wanted to make a return visit on this year’s trip, and today was a great day – it was bright and sunny and not too too hot! There weren’t even a lot of mosquitos (spraying ourselves with DEET might have helped, too).

We spent more than two hours in the garden, and I took too many photos again; here are some of the best ones.

We were quite ready for lunch by the time we’d finished in the gardens. We couldn’t return to the place we ate at last year (What’s Shakin’) because they’re closed on Sundays; the people at the garden recommended Pi’ilani Kitchen, a small restaurant a couple of miles up the road that opened earlier this year. It was delicious. We each had their special of the day, a generous portion of seared ahi on an excellent salad…and it cost all of $19. Not quite worth the trip to Hawai’i, but definitely worth stopping for!

After lunch, we stopped at a “Scenic Point” sign along Highway 19; the view wasn’t much, but there was a sign telling the story of the town of Laupāhoehoe, which suffered greatly in the Tsunami of 1946 – we could see a little of Laupāhoehoe Point and decided to drive down there and see more.

There’s a park where the school and pier used to be (including a memorial to those who died in the tsunami, as well as reprints of newspaper articles from 1946 telling the stories of some of the survivors). People were enjoying themselves, both in the water and on the land, and there was plenty of surf and spray.

We drove back to the resort to enjoy the sunset and a foofy drink from our balcony, then we walked across the street to Kings Shops and had gelato for dinner.