Volcanoes National Park

We spent a day driving and walking through the amazing Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, and saw so. much. lava (duh!). No, seriously, we were floored by the size of the fields of hard black rocks. And even though we didn't get to see any actual flowing lava up close, seeing the ripples in the rock formations, how they covered roads and trees, and being able to look into old craters and ancient lava tubes gave us an incredible insight in the crazy world of volcanoes.
We also drove back into the park after sunset and got to see the glow emanating from an active crater of the Kilauea volcano. Realising that the hot bubbling liquid that was jumping up and down in front of our very eyes is what the whole centre of our earth is made out of was a rather humbling thing. 

Mauna Kea

One of the items at the top of our to-do list while on Big Island was to watch the sunset from above the clouds from the (almost) top of the Mauna Kea volcano. And boy were we happy we took our small rental car all the way up the steep mountain-side to the visitors center at 9200 feet (2800 meters) - the view (and subsequent star-gazing show) were ah-ma-zing (as I'm sure you'll be able to tell by the small avalanche of photos that follows). 
:-)

Big Island - exploring the North East corner

Having stocked up on mochi at Two Ladies Kitchen in Hilo, we drove up North to explore the area. We stopped several times on the way before making it up to the Waipio Valley viewpoint; there's so much beauty to be seen everywhere! Waterfalls, stunning views by the sea, cool antiques shops in Honoka'a, delicious smoothies... the whole day was a real treat.

More of Hawaii - East coast of Big Island

It's now exactly a year that we were in Hawaii, and I realised this week that I hardly posted anything about our wonderful trip over here on my blog... the reason for this (and for the lack of posts in general) is that our life has very much changed in the past year: we now have an adorable baby girl who fills us with tremendous love and joy (and ever so slightly limits our Sunday morning sleep-ins). :-)

I don't think I'll be posting as often as I used to (scrap that, I know I won't be posting as often as I used to), but I'll try and come back here regularly(ish) with photos of our Hawaii trip (because how could I resist a bit of reminiscing?!), and more... I'm way better at posting regularly on Instagram, so if you want to follow what's happening in our neck of the woods, that's the place to be.

So... back to our Hawaii trip. After a couple of days on the west coast of Big Island we drove to the other side via Saddle road and explored the area around Pahoa where we were staying in a small airbnb place. So much lava over there, and some beautiful black sand beaches.