Hilo

Wednesday 1^st May, 2013

Today we did a private tour with Ross and Lesley with Aina Tours. We used the same company two years ago. Tina was our driver and guide for the day. We visited the Lava Tree State Park, here we saw formations created by lava flowing around the trees leaving these alien looking forms.

Lava Tree State Park

A stop was made at Rainbow falls, before heading to Pohoiki Bay a surf beach with black sand and some thermally heated areas of sea.

Rainbow Falls

Pohoiki Beach

A Surfer diving in

Kalapana was our next stop, this area was covered in lava back in the 60’s. An entire town was destroyed, just a few fern fronds are now growing and a planting of coconut trees has been started to line the route to the Black Sand Beach. We walked through the old lava field to reach the beach.

Our next stop Ahalanui Warm Pond. Time to eat the lunch we had purchased earlier. We followed lunch with  a very relaxing swim in the geothermically heated pool.

On our return journey Tina stopped at the Macadamia plantation so we could all have ice cream. Yum, and we bought some choc-coated macadamias as well.

This tour went for 7 hours at a cost of $75 each.