Hilo/Hawaii

February 17, 2024 Hilo/Hawaii

I had booked a six-hour excursion for today. The participants gathered shortly before 9 a.m. and left the ship together.

We boarded the bus provided for us and drove to our first destination: Black Sand Beach.

After twenty minutes, the ride continued past the celebrity-planted banyon trees, through the Liliuokalani Japanese Garden to the Rainbow Waterfall, then past the King Kamehameha statue to our main destination.

We bought our lunch at a supermarket and ate it on the drive to Volcanoes National Park. There we visited the visitor center and the viewpoint, from which you can see the huge crater of a former volcano. Within the crater, a "new" volcano, Kilauea, is bubbling away.

The bus took us to another viewpoint closer to Kilaunea.

At our next stop we walked through a lava tunnel surrounded by rainforest.

On the way back we drove through the town of Hilo to a chocolate factory where we could also buy candy.

I ended the evening in the Tropical Theater with the funny film "Ticket to Paradise".