Last night was cold. I'm in Hawai'i, people, what's happening? Pat and I are staying in a "cosy" tent for two, where Pat froze last night and I repeatedly added layers to my clothes inside my powerless one-season sleeping bag. What a night. But it was free! The Big Island is vast and beautiful; it would fit all the other Hawaiian islands inside it with room to spare. It's also the youngest and most volcanically active island in the chain.

Today Pat and I hiked straight through the small crater of Kilauea Iki, through the giant lava tubes and hiked the crater rim as far as we could go into it. We checked out the sulphur cliffs and Kilauea Military Camp, before heading out on an exploration mission to a freaky, dangerous and massive crater with (literally) tonnes of interesting lava formations and steam vents everywhere. I think we got a bit off the beaten track as on our return we passed a barrier basically telling us we shouldn't have been there. Thanks for the heads up!

Yesterday we arrived and picked up our bright and shiny yellow car. We set up our camp just outside the National Park and took a drive down the Chain of Craters Road. My ears were popping like crazy (they survived the flight, by the way) and I spent almost the whole time yawning to clear them. Unfortunately the lava is no longer flowing to the sea, but the result of the flow from the 80's onwards completely covered the coastal road that used to be there. Now it's a tourist attraction. We spent a while exploring the lava flows and getting excited about the different colours and shapes caused by the flows. The ocean waves were huge, and it made me apprehensive when I learned that a few years ago about 50 acres of coastline disappeared into the sea in minutes as it was all an unstable lava shelf. I hoped we were on safer ground. On the way back we took a look at the craters, some huge volcanic rift close to the recent eruption and Kilauea Iki cone. All were pretty impressive. What was more impressive was coming back to the Kilauea caldera at night to see the red orange glow of the lava pool in the central crater, giving us some idea of just how alive the land is on the Big Island. The stars were even out for me to try a little star navigation. A great evening!

So after spending my last night on the Big Island eating a Hawaiian buffet in Kilauea Military Camp, we're now looking forward to another night in the cramped, freezing paradise of a "two-man" tent. I can't wait.

It actually didn't turn out that bad! The cloud cover helped, and I found a way to make the tent tenser so we wouldn't be dripped on overnight. So that was all good. We got back to Hilo and drove around a bit, checking out Rainbow Falls and the most giant banyan tree I've ever seen in the forest above. These trees are just incredible.

I had the idea of visiting the town after dropping Pat off, but nobody would look after my big bag so I had to check it into the next available flight. That left me time enough to glimpse the town gardens before heading back to the airport to catch an earlier flight to Honolulu.