Bloody long day. Got the taxi at 03.15 to the airport, check in at 4am and flight at 0500 landing at Hawaii (The Big Island) at about 0545. Grabbed the hire car and headed to a recommended diner for breakfast. Re the hire car against my better judgement I got a Mustang convertible again. It was actually heaps better than the one in LA a few years ago but still like an entry level falcon. The Diner was Kens House of Pancakes and it lived up to the recommendations, I had a breakfast burrito with a side of pancakes, the burrito was great but don't think I will get into the habit of pancakes for breakfast. Back to the airport to check into Blue Hawaiian Helicopters . Got our flight safety brief and boarded at 0900. You don't necessarily get to sit next to your partner, they distribute you by computer according to weight. The take off was pretty cool, you all have good bose headsets on and they play the theme from Hawaii Five 0 as you leave the metro area.Took about 10 mins to get to the first lava flow and the the views were amazing. This has to go down as one of the best things I have done. The photos probably don't do it justice. We started at the bottom of the flow near the ocean close to a destroyed and rebuilt village of kalapana. Like flying over the ocean it is very hard to get an indication of size due to its vast flatness, luckily there were a couple of Trekkers not too far away and we could start guessing sizes compared to then. What I first thought were very tiny lava flows were probably 10 + metres. We started moving up the hill and came to a Bed and Breakfast house that was only destroyed in Mar 12. Only the top of the water tank, a bit of the roof and an intact satellite dish ( good advertising ). Lots. Of steam vents and smoke coming up from underground lava flows. We the got to the Kilauea Caldera and this was definately the highlight of the trip. You could look down into the volcano and see the lava bubbling and spurting. They were talking about temps between 750 and 1000 C. I will look upload some video later. If anyone is considering this I would thoroughly recommend our pilot Tim and Blue Hawaiian Helicopters . Saw a few more steam vents on the way back and a few waterfalls but nothing could compare to what I had just seen. After drop off headed back up to the Jaggar Museum at the Volcano National Park. This is located looking over the Kilauea Caldera. It was even impressive viewing it from ground level, walking through the museum I noticed a photo of a lava explosion with a helicopter flying in front of it, very impressive photo (see attached photos). We then drove down Chain of Craters road. Towards the coast. The road is cut down the bottom due to volcanic activity so it is about a 20 mile drive to a dead end. The scale of the craters is amazing. You will see a photo attached of zooming in on trackers down the bottom of the crater. Apparently when this blew in the 70,s the lava plume was 2000ft in thee air. People standing where we were standing got slight burns. Drive through the old lava flows is what I sort of imagine the moon to be like. The Force of this stuff is unbelievable. Rains a hell of a lot on this side of the island but not much over at Kona. It was raining up the mountain but cleared up as we got near the coast. Stopped at a spot titled Lava Tube. Had to walk about 500m through rainforest ( thought I was back in FNQ), then entered this lava tube. It is sort of like a big cave but runs parallel to the ground. Felt like I was walking through a big pipe and I suppose in reality I was. Driving diet he hill the temp also rises by about 20F but also very strong winds. By the time we got to the coast it was quite hard to stand. Took a few happy snaps at the coast then drove back to Hilo, drooped the car off, had a few beers and waited for the plane home. Taking off through the clouds we could see the 3 volcanoes above the clouds, very impressive site. Got back to the Hotel at about 9pm, bloody long day but well worth it. If anyone else is considering this do at least 2 or 3 days on the big island and do the trip around the island. We just heard on the news this morning the lava flow area we didn't visit has a massive above ground flow 500 m from the ocean and expected to go into the ocean today. ANZAC Day tomorrow.