Unlike the missionaries that arrived in Hawaii in the 1800's on Friday I wasn't greated by a bunch of nubile native girls running toward the plane topless. I was a bit dispointed about this methinks that I turned up a couple of hundred years too late. After around four hours at the airport in Honalulu I got on the plant to Hilo, on the Big Island, Hawaii, which was only really a 30 minute flight.

Yesterday was a good day. As fate would have it an American girl, Jamie, was looking for someone to split the cost of her hire car with for a few days which I jumped at. Not only did I get some much needed transport to the further spots on the Big Island but Jamie is also an American History teacher to boot so I've started to learn some things about the place.

I also had a number of firsts yesterday. I visited my first Wal Mart (yes I was impressed and it was apparently only a small one!) and my first Taco Bell. Oh yeah, almost forgot I saw my first lava. We spend most of the day at the Hawaiian Volcano park, driving and walking around it and across partially dormant calderas and old lava flows. A lot of the park had a bizzare moon like landscape, this also made for a number of good photos with scenes such as old lava flows cutting off a road, once I find a computer with a USB link I'll upload these photos. My original plan was to catch a bus and hike around but I'm glad it worked out the way it did as many of the main access trails in the park were closed due to high levels of sulphur dioxide venting from the ground (much the same as I'm venting after Taco Bell).

In the evening we headed down to the lava viewing spot to watch active lava flow into the Pacific Ocean. Late in the day when we got there you could only see the steam plume rising out the the water, however as the night got darker the base of the plume took on an definite orange glow, the chaning rate of lava flow and wind speed also periodically removed the steam for a few seconds allowing us to see the lava below. This and the ocasional spurt of lava sending droplets of molten rock into the air was amazing, we watched for a good few hours. Even though this makes me sound like a geologist I still want to state that lava is cool!